Impatience is the Enemy of Writers

Written By Jonathan Smith

Sometimes a story needs to sit in a drawer for a month . . . or a year.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the revision process this week, because I finally had time this summer to pull out a 3,500-word personal essay I’d written last year. I'd believed the thing to be a stellar creation—so much so that I’d submitted it to editors at major publications. (I’m looking at you, The New York Times.)

But upon sitting down at the Friendly Street Market patio with an iced coffee and the printed pages on Tuesday, I realized something bone-chilling. That essay—about how my younger brother who has Down syndrome lost his job and his friends and his sports team after our mother died—was nowhere near to being finished.

I’m a veteran journalist, and I made a rookie mistake: I neglected to realize that I was so very close to my material that I couldn’t see the essay clearly.

Pushing past the nausea and the shame, I took my purple pen to the manuscript and crossed out whole paragraphs and added whole paragraphs and made myself cut the thing in half because it rambled . . . oh wow, did it ramble. The result is a much tighter, punchier essay—an essay much more interested in offering insight into the subject matter (what happens to adults with intellectual disabilities after their parents pass away) than offering insight into my own emotional state (i.e., dark) last year.

I teach the personal essay form a lot. A lot. I recognize the same tendency in my writing students that I see in myself—a misbelief that because we survived the hell of getting a draft of our story down on paper, it’s publication-worthy. I’m reminded of Anne Lamott’s chapter from Bird by Bird: Some Instructions for Writing and Life, titled “Shitty First Drafts”. But oh, people, what I’d submitted to The New York Times, et. al was a Shitty Fourth Draft. How humiliating.

“So why didn’t you share the draft with your critique partners?” a friend asked me the other day when I recounted my tale of woe.

The thing is, I did. And I’m pretty sure that they, in their kindness and wisdom, saw the pain radiating from every sentence and didn’t want to suggest a major overhaul, terrified that I might go off the deep end.

You can bet I'm revisiting Meaghan O’Connell's The Cut article titled “How to Revise Your Own Writing (thecut.com)”

I also work with a list of ten questions I’ve developed over the years—questions like “What question guides this story, and how do I answer it by the end?” and "Who am I before the events in this essay, and how do I change because of those events?" I freewriting the answers to those questions after every draft of a piece.

But even that self-imposed assignment didn’t help me to refine the personal essay about my brother. I see now that only time and distance could do that. Sometimes I get so impatient to see my work in print that I forget how some pieces—like so many onion skins and carrot peels and eggshells—simply have to compost for several months . . . or a year.

Happily, there are shorter, timelier pieces (such as op-eds) that benefit from one night of distance, and then revision and submission to editors. When I've written something long and emotional and convoluted, hopefully I'll have the patience to let it sit a while before I go about submitting it to my favorite editors; in the meantime, I'll work on another essay or novel chapter or magazine article.

Still with me on this revision thing? You might enjoy my upcoming workshop “Write, Revise, Submit—Write a Short Memoir in a Weekend,” hosted by Wordcrafters in Eugene.

What I’m Publishing

My article on the pay-it-forward café in Rochester, New York is out! You can see it here: A Culinary Apprenticeship Fights Food Insecurity in Rochester (nextcity.org)

For The Writer Magazine, I wrote about how authors use humor in children’s and young adult literature: How authors use humor in kidlit - The Writer (writermag.com)

And I profiled the National Association of Memoir Writers: Insider: National Association of Memoir Writers - The Writer (writermag.com)

Once in a while, I write blog content for other people; this piece is timely! Don’t Miss These Dazzling Routes for Fall Foliage (sayinsurance.com)

A Few Cool Writing Resources

  • My Pacific Northwest colleague Priscilla Long contacted me recently about her marvelous new title, Dancing with the Muse in Old Age. It’s an inspiring, smart book that debunks the myth of peak creativity between the ages of 39-42. Here’s an interview with her in 3rd Act Magazine (which itself looks like a terrific publication for older people).

  • I’m in my second week of a genre studies workshop in the MFA program for which I teach, and we’re talking about flash fiction and nonfiction—a form I adore. I came across this wonderful short article about flash nonfiction that defines the genre and its various forms in a playful, helpful way: Catapult | When Flash Nonfiction Strikes You | Michael Todd Cohen

  • While we’re on the subject, if you’re looking for stellar narrative personal essays, check out this list of 50. The essays are divided in to themes including “growing up,” “travel,” “sports,” “race,” etc.

  • And finally, for those of you who write crime-centered fiction, check out Crime Cruise. It’s a cruise from Miami to Cozumel, featuring world-class speakers and workshops about crime writing. (My mother published a crime novel; it scared the pants off of me. I will not be attending Crime Cruise.)

Conferences, Workshops, and Calls for Submissions

That’s all for now! Feel free to share this newsletter these opportunities with everyone you know! And email me if something wonderful comes across your inbox. I’ll share it in the October newsletter.

Much gratitude,

Melissa

P.S. Here's me with my husband at our niece's wedding in upstate New York, before I got out on the dance floor and--according to my teen--seriously embarrassed myself.

Jonathan Smith
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