Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Push Hands

This piece by Skinner couldn’t have come at a better time. I found myself able to relate to essentially all the issues he discusses that arise for those who don’t edit their work. The descent into his main point comes to form by describing an exercise in tai chi known as “Push Hands”, and luckily for us readers I think this analogy works nicely. Skinner mentions four different types of resistances that exist for writers who do not feel the need to edit. I unfortunately was able to relate to all. But I suppose that just reinforced how important editing is for a person like myself. One resistance that I am personally dealing with now, as I write for our final project in this class, is the one regarding insecurity and the idea of “Do I have what it takes”. Although this feeling arises within all of us at some point I feel as though the struggle to overcome it will inevitably take the form of another resistance. Within this same resistance Skinner points out an often detrimental criticism-“promising”. This is definitely a situation I know well. Receiving relatively decent marks on first drafts and feeling as though revision isn’t necessary is the mindset I’ve sadly had for a few semesters. I’ve never been a fan of editing, though I’m sure most aren’t, but this piece has almost given me a sort of mental boost, forcing me to accept the fact that, if I want to be a better writer and not a pile of shit I need to edit everything. So edit I will, in hopes of avoiding a future of feces.

6 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Im very glad that someone else felt the same way about this piece that I did!

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  3. Our responses to this essay are almost exactly the same haha. I was surprised when i read the part about the insecurity because i had never really considered myself an insecure writer. But when thinking of the way i revise i realized that is infact what i do

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  4. It is nice to read a piece about the difficulties of writing because often times we tend to think of writers as geniuses that can crank out a masterpiece easily with no problem. The fact is that most if not all writers have a hard time and are insecure about their work, after all they are only human. Reading this piece allows one to relate to other writers and realize that the difficulties one is going through is something every writer goes through.

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  5. You are definately not alone on identifying with Skinner's descriptions. "Editing" is not a creative friendly term and certainly not something I get excited about. We have to remind ourselves that it makes us stronger.

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  6. Haha! "if I want to be a better writer and not a pile of shit I need to edit everything. So edit I will, in hopes of avoiding a future of feces." This is my new writing mantra. Thank you!

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