Posted on Present
Saturday, March 7th, 2009
Seldom do I go back and read my own work after it’s been printed. Once I am finished with a piece, I leave it behind for good. Any mistakes made by editors and designers, or worse, anything overlooked by the writer that makes it through proofing can ruin a feeling about a story a for me. Yesterday’s post mentioned a story that I reworked for Present Magazine. The link to Power of One was posted today. The page was barely loaded before I clicked to another. The first words in the first paragraph seemed sound – as I intended them, and that was reason enough to assume the rest was flawless. Writing should be about the act; the finished product an afterthought – a coincidence that results from the work and is evidence time was invested.
I tapped the keys for that story and the beat eventually ended. The results – the words on the page – are the movements to the beat that died and soon as I wrote the last sentence. Once my work is done, it belongs to the editors and proofreaders, the critics, and they take the work that didn’t come from them and try their best to improve it or comment on its quality, never hearing the source of the rhythm it was written to or what it accomplished for the author.
This particular piece came out unscathed despite the trimming and that is the gift of a talented editor. Present’s Pete Dulin is always up for the risk. I know I have the greenlight to shoot at all times, and yet this is probably the most conventional writing I’ve done in some time. As for the readers and the critics, now it’s up to you. Happy reading.
