Rewriting: Don’t Be Afraid of Beginning Again

"Beginning again is not starting from scratch," wrote singer and author Judy Collins in Morning, Noon, and Night: Living the Creative Life. I recently heard a story that supports her idea.

An art student dropped his completed ceramics assignment, shattering it on the tile floor outside of the classroom where he was taking it to be critiqued. "Shit!" he said. As he crouched to gather the pottery shards, his instructor stepped into the hall to find out what had happened. Stooping to help clean up, he asked, "What are you going to do?"

"Don’t know."

"Make it again," the instructor said.

"Again? I don’t have time," he grumbled. "This took me days to make."

"Start again and see if it doesn’t take you a lot less time to finish it. You know what to do now." The student did start again and, sure enough, he finished the assignment in half the time.

You may write a book, an article, or a speech that seems to “shatter” just as you finish it. It feels like it will take too much time and effort to write it again. I urge you to begin again, see what happens. Because you’ve already written down your ideas, it’s much easier to recreate them and, even better, improve them. When you revise your writing, you’ll give your readers more interesting, better-crafted images and expressions that will be remembered.

"Don’t be afraid of beginning again," Judy Collins said, and I agree with her.

Faye Quam Heimerl, © 2009

Faye Quam Heimerl of Quam Editorial is familiar with beginning again: she’s written and published two books and edited several books for clients, so she knows only good things come from reworking a piece of writing. Faye will help you unearth those good things through her editing and rewriting. Contact Faye at Faye@QuamEditorial.com or call 303.505.3530.