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pod_together, poetree, and "The Fairest Of Them All": editing
Sep. 6th, 2013 06:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexconall posting in poetreeediting stories
walking barefoot on glass shards
which is least painful?
editing, when self-critique
is tempered by words of praise
Today I'd like to talk about how I edited mypod_together project, "The Fairest Of Them All".
I say "I" as though it was a solo project: thank you again,jjhunter and kaberett.
I lucked intokaberett because they volunteered to be a beta for poetree/ and I asked for a beta. I got jjhunter by—I mentioned that I wanted to win poetree challenge 35, with one of the prizes on offer being two hours workshopping the draft with jjhunter. Nobody else got their poetry pod_together draft done in time. I wanted the cover art challenge-35 prize, but I knew the poem was flawed. Most of my final drafts are first drafts, but they're always flawed. I can't always see the flaws, and I don't always know how to fix the flaws I see, but the flaws are always there. So I went with the workshopping, and I have no regrets.
Trying to edit my own work is an exercise in frustration, usually. When I'm looking for things I did wrong, things I did wrong are all I can see. But six minutes into my two hours withjjhunter, she said "I do love the 'consider the /strength of crown-sworn mages' bit". Blink. Blink. Smile. She'd said to expect squee and "this works REALLY WELL for me" as well as pointing out of things that didn't work, but I hadn't been expecting it, you know? And a few minutes after that, jjhunter pointed out something else she liked, and kaberett said "yes! it's lovely." Blink. Blink. Smile.
There were several instances ofkaberett and jjhunter drawing things, excellent and beautiful things, out of the text that I have no memory of putting in there, things that I would never have known were there without their help. Blink. Blink. Grin.
Lesson: get editors who genuinely enjoy your work and who genuinely want it to be better, instead of editors who're editing only because it's their job, or because they live in your head and don't actually want you to let any art out of your head.
walking barefoot on glass shards
which is least painful?
editing, when self-critique
is tempered by words of praise
Today I'd like to talk about how I edited my
pod_together project, "The Fairest Of Them All".I say "I" as though it was a solo project: thank you again,
jjhunter and kaberett.I lucked into
kaberett because they volunteered to be a beta for poetree/ and I asked for a beta. I got jjhunter by—I mentioned that I wanted to win poetree challenge 35, with one of the prizes on offer being two hours workshopping the draft with jjhunter. Nobody else got their poetry pod_together draft done in time. I wanted the cover art challenge-35 prize, but I knew the poem was flawed. Most of my final drafts are first drafts, but they're always flawed. I can't always see the flaws, and I don't always know how to fix the flaws I see, but the flaws are always there. So I went with the workshopping, and I have no regrets.Trying to edit my own work is an exercise in frustration, usually. When I'm looking for things I did wrong, things I did wrong are all I can see. But six minutes into my two hours with
jjhunter, she said "I do love the 'consider the /strength of crown-sworn mages' bit". Blink. Blink. Smile. She'd said to expect squee and "this works REALLY WELL for me" as well as pointing out of things that didn't work, but I hadn't been expecting it, you know? And a few minutes after that, jjhunter pointed out something else she liked, and kaberett said "yes! it's lovely." Blink. Blink. Smile.There were several instances of
kaberett and jjhunter drawing things, excellent and beautiful things, out of the text that I have no memory of putting in there, things that I would never have known were there without their help. Blink. Blink. Grin.Lesson: get editors who genuinely enjoy your work and who genuinely want it to be better, instead of editors who're editing only because it's their job, or because they live in your head and don't actually want you to let any art out of your head.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-09 05:31 am (UTC)Also, positive feedback is such an important thing to writers of all levels. I find myself wondering a little bit as to why you weren't expecting to get positive feedback. Do you participate in many writing/poetry communities (either in person or online) where work is shared?
no subject
Date: 2013-09-09 11:20 am (UTC)I do not, but my experience with being betaed has a lot of 'this could be better' and not so much 'this is good'. Add a nasty inner editor, season with anxiety...
no subject
Date: 2013-09-10 01:53 am (UTC)I'm part of a couple of writing communities (some online, some IRL) and they tend to be decent about pointing out what they liked (as well as being thorough in finding the flaws). However, I'm not sure how much of this is good fortune on my part. Do you think this workshop experience will make you more likely to seek out writing communities?
no subject
Date: 2013-09-10 02:02 am (UTC)IRL it's basically a no-go. I work the wrong shift to participate in weekday evening activities. Online...maybe. I've looked into them before, and I pretty much need to have a novel-sized draft before I begin approaching online writers' critique communities. I don't yet. I'll worry about online writers' critique communities sometime after I do.