Sometimes, in order to make something better, you have to scrap the whole thing.
I've always known this. The hard part has been making it work. I've unfortunately lived much of my life under the impression that if something on my work isn't criticised, it's "good enough," and doesn't require improvement. Regardless of whether or not the former is true, the latter is almost never true.
This was the biggest problem I had with writing my poem this semester. I had a lot of trouble letting things go because I couldn't bring myself to acknowledge that, even if they were good enough for someone else, they weren't good enough for me. It took me three painfully similar drafts to realize that I had gotten myself stuck in a terrible rut.
The "final" draft of my poem still isn't where I'd like it to be, but I'm oddly proud to say it looks nothing like the first draft, or the second or third. Interestingly, though, it still retains the same story and tone, but in much more comprehensible language that couldn't have worked without scrapping the previous drafts.
The poem, of course, wasn't the first time I ran into this problem. Earlier in the year, the Orlando essay served as a warning for me about getting too attached. I was unable to force myself to cut much of the early work, resulting in an irritating lack of clarity in much of the essay.
The essay also taught me something that seems fairly self-explanatory: Don't start writing until you actually know what you're writing about. I started out with what I thought was a pretty good idea of what I wanted to write about but realized after a couple paragraphs that I couldn't think of a thesis.
I made the stupid decision to try and push through, and completed a jumbled mess that required another brainstorming session to fix - except it never got fixed, and much of the original, subpar content made it into the final product.
I've learned my lesson about having a focus, but I'm still tentative about cutting the original content. I guess that's something I'll just have to get comfortable with.
Cormac! :
ReplyDeleteI was surprised to see that your reflection on first semester was actually really similar to my own. This semester also taught me how to let go of initial ideas in order to reach more developed and interesting ones.
Like you, I had a huge struggle with this lesson at first. I was turning in work that was acceptable, but nothing I was truly proud of. I was getting fairly good grades in return for my work, but it was an unsatisfying way to go about writing for me. One of my biggest turning points, which I can see you struggled with as well, was when we had to write poems for English. I am not a poet and my poetry skills leave a lot to be desired, so right from the get-go I wasn’t expecting anything amazing, but it turned out to be even harder than I expected. Not only could I not write anything good, I was having trouble coming up with ideas to write about at all. I had come up with an idea I was happy with, and spent days trying to develop it and pursue it further. Eventually, I had put myself into such a rut that I didn’t even want to finish the poem anymore, even if I did like my idea. I had been trying to push through the brick wall at the end of a cognitive alley, and I couldn’t get myself to turn around because it felt like starting over. It was very difficult for me to start backing away from my idea; to start letting go of content that I had worked hard on. However, this is eventually the only thing that allowed me to reach the final draft of my poem, which while still not perfect is greatly improved and greatly altered in comparison to my original.
I didn’t think other people would have had the same problem as I had, and I’m glad that I’m not the only one who struggled with this idea. Thanks for the post!
Dear Cormac,
ReplyDeleteIt seems we've had similar experiences with scrapping our drafts to create a new and improved one (haha, a paradox). I know exactly how it feels to throw away something you thought was great, or at the least, A-worthy. It took me about 5/6 of the semester to finally realize that this was the reason I had never gotten an A on any major assignment. And on that note, I ended up creating a new poem from Level 1 while everyone else was on Level 3.
It was a terrible feeling. But it was undoubtedly worth the sweat and blood. My first topic for my poem was- excuse my language- complete and utter crap. As to why, I don't know myself, but it probably had to do with the fact that I have never experienced being burned at the stake... Anyhow, my second idea really made me think deeply about how I felt (instead of some old, outdated subject about witches). Ideas began pouring out of my brain and into the computer through my hands. It was quite the miracle.
In the end, I learned the same lesson as you did: to not even try making jumbled, mindless trash seem pretty. In contrast, though, I probably won't be able to fix the problem; instead, I'll likely throw away both the prototype and the problem to create a new copy.
I like pie!