Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Words of Wisdom on Revision, from Kent Brown at Highlights Foundation


The following came from Kent Brown at Highlights Foundation, with a tag at the end inviting folks to share.  I especially like Raymond Chandler's comment!:
"Revision is where the real story lives." 
Editorial consultant Eileen Robinson provided us with this thought. We wondered how many people in the children's book business feel the same way about revision. We found thousands of quotes from authors and editors alike, who, like Eileen, know that "revision is where the real story lives." 
"I'm a rewriter. That's the part I like best . . . once I have a pile of paper to work with, it's like having the pieces of a puzzle. I just have to put the pieces together to make a picture." Judy Blume 
"If a teacher told me to revise, I thought that meant my writing was a broken-down car that needed to go to the repair shop. I felt insulted. I didn't realize the teacher was saying, 'Make it shine. It's worth it.' Now I see revision as a beautiful word of hope. It's a new vision of something. It means you don't have to be perfect the first time. What a relief!" —Naomi Shihab Nye 
"Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain." —Elie Wiesel 
"Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon."—Raymond Chandler  
"Get your first draft done any way you can. Then the real work starts: revision." —Harold Underdown 

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