By Bernadette Geyer

My writing initiatives spawn and multiply in varied laptop folders, or huddle clipped collectively on my desk topped with a Publish-it observe that claims “For enhancing.” There are additionally dozens of dog-eared journal pages, ready for me to overview and decide if there’s one thing to work on sooner or later. I’ve been binge-writing over the previous yr, phrases spilling from me as if some obstruction had lastly been expelled.

This abundance has me occupied with my writing course of—how I rework my ideas into completed (or deserted) essays—and I’ve realized the method resembles a sink (my mind) stuffed with water (a pool of concepts) that’s slowly emptying.

The water furthest from the drain is the place the concepts are simply floating in stasis. Because the concepts get nearer to the drain, they begin to swirl, a vortex begins to type. I can understand motion, delicate, however distinct. That is the purpose the place the writings make it right into a Phrase doc for enhancing.

My mind is sort of a giant sink, it appears. Perhaps extra a tub after I begin all of the dog-eared pocket book pages which have collected. In some, sticky tabs jut out at odd angles with the theme scribbled on it—whether or not it’s a craft essay thought, a memoir title, or flash CNF notes. Motion on this huge physique of water is sort of imperceptible, however it’s there.

As soon as I kind the concept right into a Phrase doc, then I do know I’m getting someplace. I’ll not but be sure the place this piece of writing is headed, however no less than I’ve determined it’s price pursuing at this second in time. Once I print out even a paragraph, it is likely to be hours, or days, earlier than I take a look at it once more. I’ll mess around with it. Use it as a launching pad. Write some extra. Take a break. I’ll come again to the venture and edit it. See the place the piece needs to go. I enable it to guide me.

As a selected writing venture flows nearer to the drain, the breaks I take from it turn out to be shorter. It is likely to be a few days, then a single day. Then, I instantly sense a breakthrough, and I can inform the venture may be very near the drain. The editor in me additionally circles sooner and sooner. A tweak right here. A tweak there. Crossing a sentence out. Rewriting the top. Lopping off the expository intro.

By the point I’m alongside my thought on the heart of the vortex of the drain, I can barely stand to be away from the venture for even an hour. It swirls in my thoughts and consumes my each thought. The printout could resemble a cryptic chaos of scribbles, but it surely accompanies me in all places I’m going, to work or wherever I roam in my house. It’s there. In my pocket or on a desk at my facet.

After which, instantly, I’m out. The concept has emerged from the pool during which it had been floating. The centrifugal pressure of the method releases me, and I’ve an entire draft that I do know is nearly executed. Now I can chill out into the ultimate edits to the piece.

The concept settles into its new container, sizzling from the power generated by its voyage and transformation. I enable it to chill. Now it is able to journey out into the world.
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Bernadette Geyer is the writer of The Scabbard of Her Throat and editor of My Merciless Invention: A Up to date Poetry Anthology. Her prose and poetry have appeared in Bennington Assessment, Electrical Literature, Gargoyle, Oh Reader, The Good Set, and elsewhere. Geyer’s second full-length poetry assortment is forthcoming from April Gloaming Publishing in October 2025, and she or he is engaged on a group of essays. Join together with her at https://bernadettegeyer.com/.

Tagged: revision methods, self-editing