Try, Try Again by Steph Beth Nickel

 

Motivation Frame Decoration You - Free photo on Pixabay

Mindset.

There has been much talk about mindset of late.

As writers, if we change our perspective about self-editing and revision, it could make the process far more enjoyable.

Even experienced writers and authors rarely publish the first draft of their work. It's fine--important even--to pour out our thoughts in our first draft, allowing our creativity to run free. We could consider this our play draft.

Polished writing, however, is a blend of play and work--as is life.

If we assign our inner editor a chair in the corner as we complete our first draft, we are free to play. We will need their input, but only when it comes time for revisions.

Going into our writing project knowing that self-editing is a crucial part of the process can help us see it in a more positive light. 

It can be exciting to strip away the elements that don't enhance our main message, the story we want to share with our readers.

Have you experienced the joy of replacing a mediocre word or phrase with one that evokes deep emotion or paints a clear picture? That's revision at its best.

Even the persnickety work of figuring out where that comma belongs or if you've included too many exclamation marks can give a deep sense of satisfaction. 

When it comes to making revisions, we may seek out help from our team (our critique partner, beta readers, editor, etc.). Still the ultimate responsibility of deciding which suggestions to incorporate into our work rests squarely on our shoulders.

Writing and revising are about sharing our message in our voice in order to effectively reach our audience. If we see doing so as an ongoing adventure, polishing our work will not be as much of a chore. It may even become something we look forward to and learn to enjoy.

A Few Words of Warning

Just as we can't expect our first draft to be publishable, we must set aside the idea of attaining perfection with our writing.

One publisher's style guide may vary significantly from another's.

Reader expectations vary from one genre to the next.

A reader's age and gender can affect what they expect in the materials they read.

Academic writing is expected to conform with a traditional polish that does not necessarily apply to other forms of writing.

And of course, our unique author voice will determine many elements of our writing.

How do you feel about making revisions?

Do you have any suggestions that will help your fellow writers improve their mindset about the process?

Steph Beth Nickel is the former Editor of FellowScript and the current InScribe Contest Coordinator. Steph is an editor and author and plans to relocate to Saskatchewan from Ontario to be close to family in the spring of 2026. (Headshot Photo Credit: Jaime Mellor Photography)

Set the Writing FREE ~ Guest Post by Brenda Leyland

"In every block of marble

I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me,

shaped and perfect in attitude and action.

I have only to hew away the rough walls

that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it

to the other eyes as mine see it."

*

"I saw the angel in the marble

and carved until I set him free."

MICHELANGELO

Quotes found on AZ Quotes

I have been a long-time admirer of Michelangelo’s works of art and often have been inspired by his quotations, including the two above. I see more than a faint parallel between his craft of sculpting and our craft of writing. When I began this post a few weeks ago, I looked forward to exploring why these quotes speak to me so. I imagined asking Michelangelo how he came to decide what to sculpt from a block of marble. He must have been asked that a lot - we still have his answer all these centuries later: ‘I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me… I have only to hew away… and carve until I set him free’.

So, how do we as writers set our writing free? Pondering over Michelangelo's words, I came to see three points as crucial:

✦ We need a FIRST draft. 

There are times when I feel carving a marble statue might be easier than writing a novel, memoir, essay, or even a simple blog post. At least the sculptor has a chunk of marble in front of him, unlike the writer who faces a blank screen while her mind scurries to find ideas that are fresh and alive with truth and beauty. There can be no hewing of words until there’s a block of them in front of her. In the writing world, we know it as the garbage first draft.

For me, it’s usually a dumped-out collection of thoughts and impressions of what I want to write about. It might be a quote that sparks an idea. At this embryonic stage, it's barely coherent. We might have a beginning, but we can’t see how it ends. Or we might know where we want to end up but have no idea how to get there from here. And there’s no getting anywhere until we fill the blank screen, or page, with that first block of words. Then, and only then, can we begin hewing away what doesn’t belong. Chipping paragraphs that don't convey what we mean, chiseling off ill-fitting words, shaping sentences to describe the indescribable.

✦ We need FRESH vision.

Michelangelo was able to envision what he wanted to sculpt. He saw his figures as plain as if they stood in front of him. He deftly used his imagination. Like him, we must have eyes to see what is not yet there physically. We need a vision of what we want to accomplish with our words. We use the imagination God gave us to see the novel, memoir, song that’s imprisoned within our faltering first draft(s). American author Amy Tan once said that when she sees a visual image in her mind, she tries to capture it in words, making constant revisions to capture it more and more clearly. In the words of another, we write the vision and make it plain. 

✦ We need FAITHFUL perseverance.

In the early days of my writing life, I believed that writing a first draft should come out almost like the polished magazine articles and books I'd read. Sure, I knew that it couldn’t be perfectly perfect the first-time round, but something in me thought it should not be so hard. If it was that hard, I wasn’t really a writer. Not understanding that all writers start with their awful first drafts, even New York Times bestselling authors. I had no trouble believing that sculpting a statue from marble would take weeks, months, even years of intense, hard work. When I finally came to understand that creating a polished manuscript takes no less effort, time, or creative patience, I was able to relax and just do the work. And quit worrying about whether I was a ‘real’ writer. On those impossible days, I put my head down and by the grace of God stay with it.... sculpting, sculpting my word pile into something lovely and true.

*

The other day, I came across an article by author/editor Nils Parker. Here was another writer who not only saw a parallel between sculptors and writers, but he learned Michelangelo himself made such a connection in a letter dated 1547. Parks wrote, "Michelangelo not only summed up the critical distinction between sculpture and painting, but he pinpointed the essence of the editing process in the context of the written word. Sculpture, like editing, is about chiseling away at the unnecessary, at the external, in pursuit of the truth and beauty within. Painting, like writing, is the process of adding layer upon layer to a flat surface until there is something where before there was nothing." [emphasis added]

I look at Michelangelo's beautiful angel and long to touch the smooth marble surface. What a gift God gave that man. That he could envision such beauty inside a hunk of earthen marble and be so skilled, so committed, to sculpt, chisel, and shape until the ‘apparition’ was set free.

That's our job as writers: to envision what we want to say; to acquire the skills needed to make something lovely from that block of text in our draft; to learn the art of faithful stick-to-itiveness, persevering until our writing, too, is set FREE for this world to see and enjoy.

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(Top) Photo credit: Angel (1494) by Michelangelo on the Shrine of Saint Dominic, Basilica of Saint Dominic, Bologna, Italy. By James Steakley - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, httpscommons.wikimedia.orgwindex.phpcurid=5442648

* Nils Parker, "The Angel in the Marble, Modern Life Lessons from History's Greatest Sculptor". Link to article HERE.

Inspired by the beauty of God's world around her, Brenda Leyland writes from her home in northerly Alberta, Canada. She writes on her blog It's A Beautiful Life and occasionally posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Her writing has appeared in FellowScript as a former columnist and contributor as well as in InScribe's Christmas anthology. Passionate about books, Brenda's favourite sport is reading and is always up for sprints, 100-metre dashes, and marathon reads. When she doesn't have her nose in a book, Brenda also enjoys her flowers, walking, being in nature, and having afternoon tea in the garden.

A Writer's Brain, by Janet Sketchley

Matthew, aged 5, presented me with a fantastic, multi-coloured scrawl. “It’s a ship, Mom.” He began to elaborate: for water, as opposed to space; don’t get stuck in that part, because it’s the engine. On impulse, I suggested he write a story about it. He agreed -- after all, he was supposed to be getting ready for bed.

Speaking raw material
His imagination was still primed from drawing the picture, and he started telling the story as soon as I was ready. I wrote as fast as I could, often stopping him to let my pencil catch up. He was so focused that he could pick up where he left off as if he’d never paused -- perhaps playing video games has taught him something after all.

Occasionally he would come and check my work, but for the most part he just kept narrating. Even in the flow, he was precise with his wording, but he never backtracked or tried to edit himself. The important thing was to get the story out in one piece.

I kept quiet when he repeated words or concepts, and resisted the urge to correct his tenses as I transcribed. I watched him on the edge of my vision. He was so involved with his story that he had to keep moving.

What a scene we must have made -- the little boy orbiting the coffee table as he spun his tale, and the adult parked on the couch, biting her tongue.

Itching to organize
If we were a writer’s brain, he would be the creative process: lost in the wonder of discovering the story. I’d be the editor portion, straining against my muzzle. He was speaking my raw material. If I intruded too soon, I might damage it.

When he finally wound down, he had a nice little story. Later, if invited, I could work his “first draft” into a much shorter story. Perhaps he would add some fresh bits, and we would have something “publishable.”

Why do I find it so hard to follow his example?

Both sides doing what they do best
Today, when I sit in front of the computer, I’m going to try to apply his lesson. When I get a picture of where my story is going, I’ll let my fingers dance on the keyboard for the joy of following the muse. I hereby give myself permission to write a sloppy first draft as I explore.

My internal editor can go out for coffee. She’ll come back in a better frame of mind when I need her, and feel validated and supremely important when she sees the mess my creative frenzy has made along the trail. Once both parts of my brain have had their fun doing what they do best, my story will be as publishable as I can make it.

Will somebody hand me a market guide?

© Janet Sketchley, 2003, 2010. Originally published in Exchange, January 2003.
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For devotionals, reviews and conversation, stop by Janet Sketchley's blog, God with Us: Finding Joy.