Revision is basically re-vising, or seeing again. The word closest to revision in English is respect. When we look a second time, then a third, fourth, and fifth, we come to know and love the complexity of what we see. There are many facets to any subject, and revision asks of us the forbearance, humility, and creativity to seek out as many facets as possible.
The real power-players today aren’t those who hold the big, external positions of leadership. They are the people who are calm, creative, able to step away from events, see them clearly, imagine new ways to frame them, and launch fearlessly back into that good work.
Blogs put a writer in conversation with real people.
When we see something anew, we come to respect it. Each new perspective, each layer of understanding, deepens our regard. Seen in this light, revision is the most respectful approach to our writing—and to much else in our days.
All creative work is becoming; it is more alive or less alive, and our job as artists is to nurture life.
Without carving space between and within our necessary activities to engage the world spontaneously, for its own sake, there’s no life-spark. Play is how we come spiritually alive.
As writers break apart single stories on the page, they also exercise this muscle of multiplicity, strengthening their capacity to withhold judgment and embrace paradox and remain open to new layers of understanding.
A writer’s capacity to tolerate discomfort, along with violent busts of elation and anguish, determines how deeply and for how long he or she can reside in the generative state.
Even an audience of one may be one too many. The self that is vigilant in me is also my monkey mind, and my spiritual practice involves releasing this self again and again. What if the self of my most intimate writing isn’t my real self?
Every story has a hidden life—a soul, if you will. How writers tend this soul significantly affects our work and our well-being. This tending is really active listening. It’s both willful, sprung from the self, and responsive, heeding that life-force beyond the story and its readership.