In light of the Henry Miller quote in the post below (and the comments), perhaps we should say “Read .. fire!” (missed it) “Ready .. fire! (better). Ready .. Fire! (not bad at all). Usually in life, you’ve got lots and lots of bullets, and no one’s firing back at you.
Now, this post could really be refined, re-edited, re-organized. Perhaps it doesn’t capture exactly what I’m trying to convey. Maybe I should wait to post it until I’ve improved it a bit. Let it percolate, incubate. No, I’m going to send it out to the blogosphere now, while it still means something to me. Ready—FIRE – (aim).
12 comments (View/Add):
A lot of eagerness in my life has been...Really Ready!...Fire!...Oh Crap!
:)!!
LOL
I've got a friend who is facing this issue now. He's writing a book -- or, more precisely, he's continually re-writing it in the manner of Henry Miller's friend. From what I understand, that's actually pretty common.
Paul, it's certainly a problem for me, and I'm not at all surprised if it's a common problem. I'll bet that Miller and Whitman are unusual in their approach.
I had the problem when I was in college. Some years later, I no longer had it -- it had just gone away. But I have no idea what got rid of it.
I don't usually have the problem when blogging. It comes up more when I'm working on a neuroscience article. I don't think it has to do with the nature of the material, but more the fact that I know the article will be sent to 3 scientists/referees who will reject, approve, or approve pending revisions. I think it's the salience of external judgment that makes it hard for me to relax with it. I know a scientist who has a wonderful attitude toward writing these refereed articles. He realizes that the majority are accepted pending revisions. For that reason, he sends them out without trying to make them 'perfect' and lets the referees do some of the work in making suggestions!
I started my brain purging memoir on 9/11, six weeks after my mother's agonizing death from Altzheimer's. I had over 600 pages written in less than a month and even though I took almost a decade to edit and have it published, I still feel I should have taken more of the overwhelming wrath I initially felt out of it.
It sounds like the voice of experience is telling us that "Ready, Fire, Aim" may not always be everything it's cracked up to be!
I am exactly of the same notion. Just do it. I simply lack patience and loathe tedium. My blog is an example...I just plop down what I am thinking at the moment and go along my merry way.
I don't think I could be a novelist. Or an essayist. You know -- one of those people that have to think things through.
They do say that great books are not written, they are re-written. I suppose people confuse this notion with making every sentence perfect, easy enough to do.
I hadn't heard that quote Amelie. It's interesting. It makes me want to read writers' accounts of the writing, re-writing process.
I imagine that a tricky question in many forms of art is 'when is it done'?
Inspired by Amelie's comment, I found this from an interview with Henry Miller.
Interviewer:
Do you edit or change much?
MILLER
That varies a great deal. I never do any correcting or revising while in the process of writing. Let’s say I write a thing out any old way, and then, after it’s cooled off—I let it rest for a while, a month or two maybe—I see it with a fresh eye. Then I have a wonderful time of it. I just go to work on it with the ax. But not always. Sometimes it comes out almost like I wanted it.
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