I took a boxing class once. I learned the art of the jab, the uppercut, the hook. I even sparred with a guy, but he just played nice. It could have been the giddy grin on my face or the clumsy footwork, but I’m guessing he knew I didn’t pack much of a punch. If he’d really fought me, though, or knocked me out, would I have gotten back in the ring to face him again? Maybe. If I really loved boxing. But I’m a softy (and a sore loser), and I eventually quit.
With writing, however, I’m a stick-it-out kind of woman.
Over the last six years, I fought with an essay that began as a poem then grew into prose. I sparred with the story off and on: beefed it up, cut it down, sent it out into submissions only to have it bounce back (thirteen times). It would have been easy to bury it in my files and quit, but I love this essay for the way it tugs at strings of memory and resolves some deeper meaning–for me. Which is why I write. “To excavate the past before it is forgotten…produce order out of chaos…to bear witness” (thank you, Margaret Atwood). After six years, thirteen knockouts, three forms and two titles, this piece finally landed complete at 1300 words and found a home (links to come later).
Every revision hurt. But…Persistence, people. When you love something, you don’t quit, and that makes all the difference.
Revising is a game of attention, and I am easily distracted by clear skies, hot temps, and kids in need of entertaining. We head to the pool. They take to the water, and I take out pages of my novel. Chapter three sits on my lap long enough to soften and curl in the sun. I label this part “boring,” that part ” to move, watch the kids go from deep end to diving board to slide. My pencil gets lost in the towel. In an effort to cool off, I glide into the water and through swarms of bobbing grown ups and babies, then return to find chapter four wet and smelling of chlorine. Good, I think. This book could use a good chemical clean to soak and loosen the muck, to clear away the sludge.