What’s the second-best way to falsely give yourself a sense of productivity? (The first being buying office supplies.) Using a binder and sticky notes for a project, of course!
I’ve decided that it’s time to revise my favorite stories that I wrote during the last four to three years while completing my creative writing BFA. I’ve also decided that I can’t do all of it on a computer. I cannot draft by hand—not with my handwriting—but workshop classes have taught me that I can revise and mark up a piece of fiction like nobody’s business. Here in lies the purpose of the ReVision Binder.
*cutely decorated or hand drawn cover pending
Thankfully, I was gifted a binder and some cute dividers at some point. A well-meaning person thought I was more organized than I actually am (or was before), and these have been gathering dust in my room for an uncertain amount of time. I may change up how I do this, but I’m currently using the dividers to organize my stories by (sub)genre.
I’m using the sticky notes both for labeling and note taking. I’m annotating my stories throughout, but significant changes or immediate things to address get a sticky note.
I find printing the stories and marking them up really helps me. First of all, because it separates my notes from my draft-writing very clearly and visually. Secondly, I’m going to give a shout-out to all the writers who say “write by hand! It’s good for your brain!” You’ll pry my keyboard from my cold dead fingers, but in this case, the hands-on feel of this allows my brain to take to revising and critically analyzing my writing (without crying) more easily than when I’ve tried to do it just on my laptop. This may not be a trick that helps everyone, but I’m starting to believe in the power of switching mediums or modes. Printing works. Changing the font works. Reading my writing aloud to check the flow, cadence, and number of typos is something I can’t do without.
Thirdly, printing the stories and using this binder gives me a sense of accomplishment. I love having this physical object in front of me, and I can’t wait to spiffy it up. I’m going to keep reading through what I’ve printed, mark up the stories, and perhaps I’ll do a little art to make a nice cover.
So, as a follow up to my last post, we have the Revision System. This is a system of genders/community project dedicated to functionally recoining terms that misuse suffixes to any degree in a way that fixes that.
This can be coining versions that use the suffix correctly, coining versions with new names (using suffixes that fit or just generic stuff like -ic), just really whatever.
You can change the definition, keep it funtionally the same, anything that fits is good.
The only thing that I ask for coining is that no one recoins terms in a way that misuses a different suffix, because I really don’t want to have to coin a Meta Subsystem or something.
I also ask that nobody just repost flags, especially without credit to the coiner. If you’re okay with the original flags being used, cool, please just say that in your post and don’t actually repost them.
I want this to be an open system/more community based project, in part because I can’t do this whole thing by myself, and also because I know I’m not the only one frustrated by this, so I figured everyone should be able to get in on this if they want to.
For anyone unsure as to what counts as misusing a suffix, I’d recommend using Genderpedia’s guidelines (here for coric and here for comfic) to get an idea. If you personally feel that those are too loose or restrictive, feel free to change them to what feels right to you, they’re really just a starting point.
I’d personally recommend adding the name of what term you recoined to the post- not to send anyone harassment, just so we have a good feeling on what’s been done. Not to say that things can’t have multiple new versions, but it’s still a good list to have, especially since I’m planning to have a list of terms that’ve been done to have as a resource.
I’m gonna start coining terms for this pretty soon, and I absolutely encourage anyone who wants to jump in on this to do so.
For one of my classes we had to reanimate something we had done previously. This was rushed, but my construction has definitely improved since I did the original. I didn’t have time to add in the soft blink after he turned do to time constraints nor go back and fix some errors.
I’ve started a new project. I’m calling it ReVision.
I’m doing this because it’s summer: the time of brightness, sleeplessness, and the constant gnawing of guilt because I never feel like I’m doing enough. I have sort of graduated from college (I’m taking one last summer class), and I’ve decided to push forward with this whole writing thing. One thing I have from completing a creative writing BFA is a pile of creative work: half-baked ideas, filled assignment prompts, short story drafts that scratch the surface of what they could be.
One thing I didn’t have, until I decided to make it for myself, was a plan on what to do with all of this creative work. I feel like one of the Big things about writing that people don’t talk about is revision. Hell, even in my fiction studios revision wasn’t touched on that much. Mostly the extent of it was: revise this piece per workshop and instructor comments and turn it in. To be fair to those professors/curriculum, revising short stories probably isn’t as intense as revising novels. But still! Short stories can pack a punch, and every line matters. Wouldn’t you think that revision would be just as important?
[Insert digression about my idea for a junior or senior level creative writing course that is entirely about revising (a) previously written story/stories.]
I had one professor who did focus more on it. For our revision assignment, she required us to try something from a list of possible revision techniques. I can’t find that list right now, but I remember choosing the option of “add in a section from a different character’s POV.” I remember because this started my Revision Journey with this story. I turned in that second draft and then let the story sit in my school folder for a semester. Then I took it out again, made some notes about what more I could do with it, then put it away again. Another semester, another take out – fiddle – put it away again.
Then, this last spring semester, I missed working on my fiction so much (I didn’t take any fiction or creative writing classes), that I followed through on my notes and went through the whole story with a fine-tooth comb. That first revision step of the new POV section allowed me to look at this story through a different lens and flesh out the two main characters, after about a year-ish of reflection. I wrote this story in 2017 and I just finished another revision “round,” so to speak, last month (April 2019).
Revising this story sparked something within me. It made me feel productive, chipped away at the writer’s block and guilt clogging up my thoughts. If I do this with other stories, I’m sure that it will help me feel accomplished and develop my writing into a more mature space. I’m going to try to update my revision process to more than just 1. Let it sit, 2. Fiddle. This new process will involve a binder and sticky notes (the best tools for a false sense of productivity). I think I’ll make a separate post to share what I’ve done so far, since this reflection has gotten a little long. Still, this is where I’m at, and I’m excited to keep refining my revision skills.
