<\/p>\n
“Writing is rewriting.” \u2014 Ernest Hemingway<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
Yeah, yeah, I know the story about the last chapter of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms<\/em>\u2014that he allegedly rewrote it 39 times before he was satisfied with it.<\/p>\n
I say “allegedly” because I’ve also read accounts in which he rewrote the last page<\/em> 39 times, and others in which he rewrote the entire book<\/em> 39 times. More likely he drank 39 cocktails, shot 39 clay pigeons, caught 39 marlins and rewrote the same word<\/em> 39 times.<\/p>\n
Why am I blathering on about Hemingway’s editorial habits? Because I’m in the middle (exactly the middle) of the SEVENTH draft of my new novel, and I’m getting a little tired of rewriting. I want to be…oh, I don’t know…WRITING something new, otherwise known as CREATING. I’ve been poring over individual sentences for two weeks, and the resulting effect on my eyes and brain is similar to snow blindness<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Recently I read a quote by bestseller Michael Crichton about rewriting and his<\/em> sense of despair about it. I was impressed that he’d gone on the record about this dreaded subject because I’ve found that a lot of very successful authors like to keep the production of their works a mystery to convey that it really isn’t all that hard. This is what I call the “writer as auteur<\/a>” or the “folks don’t want to see how the sausages are made” school of thought.<\/p>\n
Anyway, here’s what Crichton had to say (which doesn’t bode well for me\u2014there will probably be an 8th draft\u2014I’m used to it):<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Books aren’t written\u2014they’re rewritten….It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go decide whether to use a loose or periodic sentence<\/a> in the paragraph I’m working on.<\/p>\n
Hopefully I won’t have to rewrite the f-cker 39 times.<\/p>\n
Before I go, I want to leave you with an entirely different kind of Hemingway quote\u2014one that shows he wasn’t always Mr. Serious Writer:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Got tight last night on absinthe. Did knife tricks.”\u00a0\u2014Hemingway, in a letter to a friend<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Writing is rewriting.” \u2014 Ernest Hemingway Yeah, yeah, I know the story about the last chapter of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms\u2014that he allegedly rewrote it 39 times before he was satisfied with it. I say “allegedly” because I’ve also read accounts in which he rewrote the last page 39 times, and others … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,19,68,13,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-craft","category-fiction","category-rewriting","category-writers","category-writingexperiences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9152,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions\/9152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}