Revision is . . . everything?
Revision — that essential conduit — isn’t just finding a better word or building a better sentence or re-visualizing a scene. It’s searching a narrative for the emotional truth at its center. By shedding safe layers and any layers of delusion, we writers discover what, exactly, is going on in our own stories, and why, exactly, we write about what we do,
So, what’s the true narrative as I pack and sort and prepare myself for my move to Portugal at the end of the summer, prepare to say goodbye to my house, to easy access to my family and friends, and to my dog, who will soon go off to a new home? What am I feeling? What am I really feeling as I decide on a departure date? Trepidation? Anxiety? Exhilaration? Impatience? All of these?
We humans have this strange huge capacity to feel multiple, often contradictory, emotions simultaneously.
When I look beyond the logistics of leaving, my imagination takes me inside the Coimbra apartments I see available online to what it might be like to live there. My imagination takes me back to the cafes and walkways I discovered in March. To the beaches and gardens and ancient ruins near the city I look forward to exploring. To museums in London, Paris, Rome, and Amsterdam, all only quick flights away. And my imagination takes me to the terrifying territory of exactly that I’m working toward: total immersion in my writing projects, which means total immersion in my own mind. Oh. My. God.
What if I don’t like it in there!
This isn’t a new concern. When my children were small and constantly interrupting, I complained that they did at the same time I might have secretly thanked them. It was safer pouring juice than wrestling with new stories. When the demands of teaching full time meant shutting down my computer, I could be both bothered and relieved. Now, I can always put a manuscript aside to clean out another closet. Coincidentally, in light of my new book’s title, an artist friend and I refer to the point of complete immersion as the vanishing point, that point on the horizon when the distance between our projects and our selves dissolve. It can be the best place. It can be the worst place. The brightest. The darkest.
Some writers say they don’t like writing, but do like having written. I pretty much like all parts of the process. But I’ve always had diversions. If what lurked behind the vanishing point was too scary, I could always emerge to feed a child or walk a dog or drive to a class. What will writing be like without these excuses? Will I find myself revising the paragraphs and pages of my own mind in order to live there?
I’m kidding. I think.
I can always fly off to Paris.
(Image: Google Images.)
