A Writer's Resolutions

​A Writer's Resolutions

In my quest for greater balance this year, I resolve to write without editing and edit without writing.

When I write without editing I'm a lighter writer, sprinting ahead of the Gnash-toothed Parser, that mental monster who sorts and shreds my words before they even meet the page. I'm able to write more, and more often, and with honesty, and I'm able to surprise myself and my readers.

When I write without editing I free my writing to shape itself naturally. Unchaperoned, my words can stretch or curl, lead or recede, dip, dart, dash – direct or diffuse as they please.

If an idea beckons from a new direction, I'll pursue it. If I lose sight of where I originally meant to go it likely wasn't worth the going, and I may end up somewhere I'd have chosen in the first place if I had only known of it.

Then, when I've free fallen as far as I feel, I will edit without writing. I see more clearly that way. When I try to re-write as I edit, I become mired in my work. I'm at odds with myself, and feeling both protective and territorial, I lose the objectivity I need to edit cleanly.

This year I will edit as devotion, riveted by the purity of the task. I will strike and slash without compunction, as if the words belong to someone else, and I owe no thought (and bear no responsibility) for the re-work ahead.

So that's it. Two-sides of one resolution. One resolution that I hope will foster compel my personal literary evolution revolution.

Happy New Year!

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Copyright © 2009 by Sally Bacchetta. All rights reserved.