Writers are tinkers.
By which I mean, they tinker with their words like they are inventors at a workshop table, adjusting and fiddling, trying to get the result right.
I thought I would provide an example of this tinkering process.
Recently, I started exploring other writing forms…the ones that aren’t novels.
I got into poetry and then, the other day… I discovered MICRO-POETRY.
Or should I write it:
micro-poetry?
Anyway, micro-poems are the Sudoko of the writing world.
They make it look easy, but once you try to condense ideas down into their most spare parts, whoa, TALK ABOUT TINKERING.
Here’s a little micro-poem I made up the other day.
Or rather, is it the final version I have (not quite) settled on:
fear in the sunshine
is worse than fear in the rain
its bright pixelation
is hypnotizing
The concept I am trying to get at is that feeling of it being sunny out, and you are wishing you could be happy while its sunny, but if you are anything but happy while its sunny, the sunshine feels weird.
Some moods just suit rain and clouds, right?
I chose fear because it seemed the direct opposite of happy (and less traditional than ‘sad’).
When you write a micro-poem, there is no hiding behind your words. Every word has to EARN the right to be there.
If it doesn’t fit, toss it and grab a new one–which is basically the definition of editing.
To show the editing process, let me show you how this little poem started out:
fear in the sunshine
is worse than fear in the rain
That’s it. Just my concept. But it needed more, it didn’t feel ‘enough’, so I added:
fear in the sunshine
is worse than fear in the rain
its clarity is hypnotizing
But the word ‘clarity’ seemed too direct so I changed it to:
fear in the sunshine
is worse than fear in the rain
its pixels are hypnotizing
Because I liked the idea that if you see it so close up, you would see (and be overhwelmed by) the pixels.
Then I tried:
fear in the sunshine
is worse than fear in the rain
its many petalled pixels are hypnotizing
But that seemed like I was trying too hard, even though I liked the flower illusion due to it’s unusualness (flowers being something we don’t typically associate with fear).
I kept the ‘hypnotizing’ because it reminded me of a snake, and snakes often = fear
Anyway, today I landed on the so-called ‘final version’, where I threw in the word ‘bright’ (which is probably not needed, given it is implied by all that sunshine–but I liked how ‘fear’ could feel ‘bright’) and I also gave pixel more syllables:
fear in the sunshine
is worse than fear in the rain
its bright pixelation
is hypnotizing
And that, to me, is the editing process in a ‘nutshell’–to keep paring it down, substituting, trying on words, discarding them if they don’t fit–until you get something this is spare, sparse, yet rarified.
And this applies to a novel just as well as a micro-poem.
Also, just to mention: a writer will tinker all day and all night to achieve perfection and has to able to say NO to oneself, let it go, and be content with imperfection. (Which is what I’m going to have to now with this little poem: let it go, with its imperfection).
You have to know when to stop and move on.
So writers, please develop the ability to say NO to your inner tinker!
Dear writers, have you developed the ability to say NO to your inner tinker? How does your editing process go?
Busy Writing 