Thursday's Thought
The life
of a writer is fraught with edits and revisions. When I’m sitting in front of a
screen working on a bit of dialogue or scratching away at a plot line, I’m
consistently thinking of the next bit or the previous one. To make work
cohesive, I need to make sure that what I’m tapping in the moment is in line
with what I’ve previously established, or what I plan to do with the narrative.
Sometimes this works and I get it right on the first try. Sometimes I reread and
realize that I’m so far off from what I need to be writing. So then I get to do
something beautiful and brilliant – I get to furiously tap on the backspace
key, deleting whole sentences and phrases. It’s glorious to hold this kind of power.
Margaret
Atwood said, “When you alter yourself, the alterations become the truth”
(Atwood, 1993, pg182). Because I spend so much of my time editing and altering
my words, I worry that I subconsciously do this with my life as well. Sure, we
all smudge over bits that might not be as lovely as we want to recall, or
embellish the bits that were difficult and trying to showcase our fortitude and
awesomeness. But at what point do those revisions become something more? I
worry that the way I remember things happening might not be the exact way it
panned out and that is bothersome since I rely so heavily on details.
Even
with all the writing I do, and the personal reflection of each of my days, I’m
still seeing my life through the lens of what I want to see. So maybe my days
aren’t as fab as I think them to be; or maybe they’re greater than I realize. I’m
not sure. Maybe my truest and most pure crusade should be to accurately and
correctly record these moments that shape me as a human so that I can look back
and know that I’m not altering myself or revising my own history.
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