It's probably all those years I spent working at various newspapers, but I'm a great believer in editing. I can't think of anything that I've written that hasn't needed some editing.
I thought everyone believed in editing. I was wrong. Recently I talked to a writer who sincerely believes her words are divinely inspired. She says she changes nothing because she writes them just as her "muse" gives them. And she thinks she's unpublished because editors are -- and I quote -- "afraid of true emotion and only publish their friends."
I smiled and made small nods and got out there as fast as I could. She was scary.
I think the great writers make it look easy. They write so well that it seems the words must flow perfect from their pens the first time. This fools people who haven't written, who don't realize how much work it takes to be clear, to be concise, to be meaningful. An old sayings goes, "Genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration." Substitute 'editing' for 'perspiration,' and I think you've got the beginning of writing wisdom.
But I tell you what I really want: the ability to edit my life. To smooth over the rough bits, take out the errors. Sometimes late at night, I torment myself for hours over the mistakes I've made, the wisecracks that I shouldn't said, the times I lost my temper and hurt someone I loved. Not to mention all the inane physical comedy I've conducted, such as tripping over lint and breaking my arm or closing the garage door on the roof of my car. I'd use a gallon of white-out on my financial decisions alone. I'd need a vat of the stuff for my relationships.
One of the cruelest and truest sayings is this: "This life ain't no dress rehearsal." Life continues even when we blunder. The world doesn't stop, and sometimes the worse thing is to realize that we won't really die of embarrassment.
Still, there is some hope in that. Life will go on. We will survive one way or another. We fall down. We get up. We go on. And maybe if we edited all our mistakes out, our lives would be the poorer for it. But I'd sure would like to try.
6 comments:
Re: rewriting life.
A gift and curse for being human is the ability to contemplate past errors. All we can do is try not to repeat them. Course, we know too well how that works ;-)
I'd like to do some of that life editing myself!!! I told my husband about it and he said we do have that happen when we're dead. Obituaries are full of nice things and leave out the bad things. But I'd like to do fix things while I'm still here!!!
-Susan1
!!! Even the Bible was edited, and editred, and translaated, and translated, and edited some more, ad infinitum! I'm sure you were kinder to this person who thinks her words don't stink than I could have ever possibly been! :-)
On the other hand...as many mistakes and stupid relationships I've found myself in, you'd think I'd have a lot of regrets, but I really don't. Whenever I start to kick myself over a relationship that could have gone better, or should have at least ended sooner, or some other bad decision I've made, I think about my favorite Garth Brooks song, The Dance, and then I feel better. If you don't know the lyrics, they go like this:
Looking back on the memory of
The dance we shared, beneath the stars above,
For a moment, all the world was right,
How could I have known, you'd ever say goodbye,
And now, I'm glad I didn't know,
The way it all would end, the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance,
I could have missed the pain,
But I'd of had to miss the dance.
Holding you, I held everything,
For a moment, wasn't I the king?
But if I'd only known, how the king would fall,
Hey, who's to say, you know, I might have changed it all,
And now I'm glad I didn't know,
The way it all would end, the way it all would go,
Our lives are better left to chance,
I could have missed the pain,
But I'd of had to miss the dance,
Yes, my life is better left to chance,
I could have missed the pain,
but I'd of had to miss the dance.
ThePress, your post reminds me of that old joke:
A monk walks into a room where another monk has been working on hand-writing another copy of the Bible. The one at work is bent over the book, crying his eyes out.
"What's wrong?" asks the first monk.
"The word... is... CELEBRATE," the second one sobbed.
Trixie, I love that joke! :)
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