Quotes & Sayings About Revising

I keep an elaborate calendar for my characters detailing on which dates everything happens. I'm constantly revising this as I go along. It gives me the freedom to intricately plot my story, knowing it will at least hold up on a timeline. — Maria Semple

There is really only one way to learn good writing: good reading and extensive writing and revising. — Robert Lane Greene

Despite the best of intentions, people create rules variously and often in reaction to behaviors deemed unacceptable to the larger goals of the group. That is why we often find ourselves revising the rules when new conditions reveal their loopholes. — Dov Seidman

We should call on the Creator to show more modesty. He created the world in a frenzy of excitement. Instead of revising his rough drafts, he had his work printed straightaway. What a lot of contradictions there are in it. What a log of typing errors, inconsistencies in the plot, passages that are too long and wordy, characters that are entirely superfluous. But it is painful and difficult to cut and trim the living cloth of a book written and published in too much of a hurry — Vasily Grossman

I love having written. Sometimes I love writing. I love to revise. Revising is my favorite part of writing. — Gail Carson Levine

When someone disagrees with me, I do not have to immediately start revising what I just said. People don't want me to always agree with them. They can sense this is phony. They can sense I am trying to control them: I am agreeing with them to make them like me. They feel; "I don't want to exist to like you. I DON'T exist to like you." — Hugh Prather

Most writers want to share their essay or book much too quickly. Those who accept the pain of hard work and revising are those who get published. — Lee Gutkind

Having a blood family means suddenly revising a definition of family that I have, over many years, learned to accept. How can I hold both concepts in my mind or find room for both families in my heart? — Soojung Jo

European languages and a Google app can now turn your words into a foreign language, either in text form or as an electronic voice. Skype, an internet-telephony service, said recently that it would offer much the same (in English and Spanish only). But claims that such technological marvels will spell the end of old-fashioned translation businesses are premature. Software can give the gist of a foreign tongue, but for business use (if executives are sensible), rough is not enough. And polyglot programs are a pinprick in a vast industry. The business of translation, interpreting and software localisation (revising websites, apps and the like for use in a foreign language) generates revenues of $37 billion a year, reckons Common Sense Advisory (CSA), a consulting firm. — Anonymous

I'm constantly revising. Once the book is written and typed, I go through the entire draft again. — Chaim Potok

Sometimes I can spend as long revising a manuscript as I spent writing it in the first place. — Margaret Haddix

If the book is finished - published and on the shelf - I do not think of revising it. But if I'm not finished psychologically with characters, they will recur, either as themselves or as new, slightly altered manifestations, and their same issues will reappear. It's a matter of the subject and emotional investment and my own obsessive thinking about various issues It's an unconscious process. To say that a single story is not done isn't quite true. A story can be finished and judged successful or not by somebody else, but if the issue is not done for me, I can count on its reappearance. — Antonya Nelson

I never see songs as permanent. I'm always in a state of revising everything. — Ariel Pink

With ardent sadness he contemplated the scene of his death for a long time, endlessly revising it like a work of art and surrounding it with images of this world, images that still imbued his thoughts, but that, already slipping away from him in his gradual departure, became vague and beautiful. — Marcel Proust

When you print out your manuscript and read it, marking up with a pen, it sometimes feels like a criminal returning to the scene of a crime. — Don Roff

Revising institutional views about the synagogue Reinterpreting Jewish values Reimagining the venue of the synagogue By unshackling synagogues from leftover views about how they do their work, by creating stronger points of connection between Jewish values and the real life concerns of individuals, and by reimagining the synagogue as a venue where people are empowered to find and create community on their terms, synagogues may become places of greater vision, inspiration, and relevance. — Zachary I. Heller

We slip into a dream, forgetting the room we're sitting in, forgetting it's lunchtime or time to go to work. We recreate, with minor and for the most part unimportant changes, the vivid and continuous dream the writer worked out in his mind (revising and revising until he got it right) and captured in language so that other human beings, whenever they feel like it, may open his book and dream that dream again. — John Gardner

The writer must have a good imagination to begin with, but the imagination has to be muscular, which means it must be exercised in a disciplined way, day in and day out, by writing, failing, succeeding and revising.
[The Writer's Digest Interview: Stephen King & Jerry B. Jenkins (Jessica Strawser, Writer's Digest, May/June 2009)] — Stephen King

I think I regard any history in quotes, because just like science, we're constantly revising science, we're constantly revising history. There's no question that various victors throughout history have flat out lied about certain events or written themselves into things, and then you come along and you find out that this disproves that. — David S.Goyer

First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about. Revision is working with that knowledge to enlarge & enhance an idea, to reform it ... Revision is one of the true pleasures of writing. — Bernard Malamud

I think the hardest part of writing is revising. And by that I mean the following: A novelist has to create the piece of marble and then chip away to find the figure in it. — Chaim Potok

I once had an editor advise me, as I was revising one of my early novels, to add more characters. I played around with the idea. As soon as I'd decided a few fresh faces and give them something to do, I realized that what my editor had really asked for was more plot. Ding. More characters equals more action. — Elizabeth Sims

Growth has no limit at Reliance. I keep revising my vision. Only when you dream it you can do it. — Dhirubhai Ambani

Volunteer sentences are the relics of your education And the desire to emulate the grown-up, workaday prose that surrounds you, Which is made overwhelmingly of sentences that are banal and structurally thoughtless. A volunteer sentence is almost always a perfunctory sentence. That can change. But only after years of questioning the shapes of sentences you read, And every sentence you write. Don't let the word "years" alarm you. Think of it as months and months and months and months. You may think a volunteer sentence is an inspired one Simply because it volunteers. This is one reason to abandon the idea of inspiration. All the idea of inspiration will do Is stop you from revising a volunteer sentence. Only revision will tell you whether a sentence that offers itself is worth keeping. — Verlyn Klinkenborg

When my first draft of a novel is done, I put it away, warts and all, to mellow. Some period of time later - six months, a year, two years, it doesn't really matter - I can come back to it with a cooler (but still loving) eye, and begin the task of revising. And although each book of the Tower series was revised as a separate entity, I never really looked at the work as a whole until I'd finished Volume Seven, The Dark Tower. When — Stephen King

This was supposed to be the Presidential Suite," she said, gazing into the room at the holes in the wall.
well, even presidents get shot," I said.
I was just going to say that myself," she said, smiling. "But I didn't want to scare you."
I didn't know whether this was interesting
that we were both thinking the same gruesome thing
or even whether it was actually the case. Perhaps it was just rhetorical ESP: Kreskin's Guide to Etiquette. But even if it was true, that we were about to say the same thing, did this connect us in some deep private way? Or was it just a random obviousness shared between strangers? The deeper life between two people I had yet to read with confidence. It seemed a kind of vaporous text that kept revising its very alphabet. An exfoliating narrative, my professors would probably say. The paratext of the possible. — Lorrie Moore

Hoping to see karate included in the universal physical education taught in our public schools, I set about revising the kata so as to make them as simple as possible. Times change, the world changes, and obviously the martial arts must change too. The karate that high school students practice today is not the same karate that was practiced even as recently as ten years ago [this book was written in 1956], and it is a long way indeed from the karate I learned when I was a child in Okinawa. — Gichin Funakoshi

But I had my wand hidden up my sleeve," he assured Padma Patil, ... [Ron revising the story in the 2nd task, of how he escaped the merpeople] ... "I could've taken those mer-idiots any time I wanted."
"What were you going to do, snore at them?" said Hermoine waspishly.
...
Ron's ears went red, and thereafter, he reverted to the bewitched sleep version of events. — J.K. Rowling

Revising a screenplay is much more frustrating than revising a song because you have to read through the entire work again while you are changing stuff. It is a lot easier to edit a song. — Kelly Jones

But as of late, I have been consumed with the significant task of revising the latest edition of my Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, while alternately putting the finishing touches on my four volumes of The Whole Art of Detection. The latter is a rather tedious, labyrinthine undertaking ... — Mitch Cullin

Practicality requires that we stop somewhere in the process, but nothing actually says we can't keep on writing and revising. In fact, most writers continue to develop ideas and themes from one book to the next in what is essentially a lifelong evolution and revision. — Ralph L. Wahlstrom

Rewrite and revise. Do not be afraid to seize what you have and cut it to ribbons ... Good writing means good revising. — William Strunk Jr.

I do so much revising as I go along; I wonder how I could write books if I hadn't grown up in the computer age. I think I'd be a very different writer. I find myself cutting and pasting, changing things around and deleting whole paragraphs constantly. — Megan McCafferty

Writing a first draft is like groping one's way into a dark room, or overhearing a faint conversation, or telling a joke whose punchline you've forgotten. As someone said, one writes mainly to rewrite, for rewriting and revising are how one's mind comes to inhabit the material fully. — Ted Solotaroff

When revising, consider whether you have written anything that will hurt or offend a member of your immediate family. If the answer is no, go back and add something. — Lynn Coady

I love drafting like I love eating ice cream or having sex; I love revising like I love doing logic puzzles; I love line-editing like I love perfectly organizing a bookshelf; I hate reviewing copyedits and the second round of proofreading because, by then, I'm getting pretty tired of my own words. They all have their own challenges, though. — Tim Pratt

I have always had a hard time revising my work as a journalist, which was never much of a problem. You always have editors as backstops. Their job is to perfect your story. Most of them want to be useful. — Jon Weisman

Most philosophies wrap their seekers in a strict belief system. By virtue of what they include, they exclude everything else, especially some vital realizations. Periodically revising our philosophy of life as we live it is, therefore, a critically valuable exercise. — Charles Bates

The voice of a person thinking, discovering, revising, is ever-present without any loss in grace or ease. — Susan Stewart

For me, intuition comes from experience. After years of experience, a person will have, if they have been paying attention and revising their thinking and behavior, intuitions about their area of experience. — Charles Faulkner

The usual way - through a long series of rejections, revising my manuscripts, and kept trying again and again. Finally I was fortunate enough to find a good agent. — Danielle Steel

I revise like crazy. I start revising before the pen hits the paper. — John Dufresne

Good writers practice. They take time to write, crafting and editing a piece until it's just right. They spend hours and days just revising. Good writers take criticism on the chin and say "thank you" to helpful feedback; they listen to both the external and internal voices that drive them. And they use it all to make their writing better. They're resigned to the fact that first drafts suck and that the true mark of a champion is a commitment to the craft. It's not about writing in spurts of inspiration. It's about doing the work, day-in and day-out. Good writers push through because they believe in what they're doing. They understand this is more than a profession or hobby. It's a calling, a vocation. — Jeff Goins

Revising stuff lately, I was shocked to see how often my characters scratched their ankles, felt their feet, and touched their own ears. — Elizabeth McCracken

The problem with memory is that is changes whatever it touches. It is never that accurate. As a result, I end up modifying and revising my own experiences. It's myth making. — Li-Young Lee

She turned for her kitchen, mentally revising her planned family dinner to include a Vor lord from the Imperial capital. White wine? Her limited experience of the breed suggested that if you could get them sufficiently sloshed, it wouldn't matter what you fed them. — Lois McMaster Bujold

When the dawn light is coursing through the slats in the shutters at last, making thin stripes on the floor, she, tossing, decides that for every human soul there must surely be a possible childhood worth living, but once it slips by, there isn't any reclaiming it or revising it. — Gregory Maguire

There's no way to guarantee that any particular system will work, will work forever, or will not need endless revising. But until we get over the idea that there is a one-size-fits-all solution to schools, above all for schools that are trustworthy enough to do the job well, we won't allow ourselves to do the difficult long-term work of redesigning the system, not just the schools. — Deborah Meier

Doing a movie of one of the Raksura books would involve a lot of CGI, but I have thought about who I'd like to play the characters. Some of them I just can't pin down to a specific actor, and I keep revising my mental list. — Martha Wells

I thought of the idea of Summly in March or April 2011. I was 15 years old and I was revising for some kind of history exam. The problem was I was trying to find information that was useful to me. When you type into Google an esoteric term, you get quite a lot of stuff that's not relevant. — Nick D'Aloisio

Knowing someone is the first goal of therapy. Modulating emotionality - whether by relatedness or psychopharmacology or both - is second. Therapy's last and most ambitious aim is revising the neural code that directs an emotional life. (176) — Thomas Lewis

33/ Though now that I think about it, the workshop that day was probably focused on revision, as in Your First Draft Sucks and You Have a Thousand Do-Overs Before You Get It Right. Think of it this way: Build a city, then blow it up to save it. Invent a road to take you far out of town, then start over with one good brick. — Kim Addonizio

Nothing quite has reality for me till I write it all down
revising and embellishing as I go. I'm always waiting for things to be over so I can get home and commit them to paper. — Erica Jong

As I suspect is true of many who write for a living, as I write I think about all sorts of things. I don't necessarily write down what I'm thinking; it's just that as I write I think about things. As I write, I arrange my thoughts. And rewriting and revising takes my thinking down even deeper paths. — Haruki Murakami

If I revise a children's book, if I'm spending three hours on the first draft, I'm probably spending 30 minutes revising it. I mean, come on! But to redo a painting? That's hard work. — Michael Ian Black

I listen to a lot of different stuff, from Mozart to Johnny Dowd to Monster Magnet. I don't listen to music while I'm writing a draft, but I do listen to it when I'm revising. — Donald Ray Pollock

Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings. — Stephen King

One could go on revising a prose page forever whereas there is a point in a poem when one knows it is done forever. — May Sarton

The only creative force capable of causally revising your experienced reality is your power to change your Self. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Interpretation must itself be
evaluated, within a historical view of human consciousness. In some cultural contexts,
interpretation is a liberating act. It is a means of revising, of transvaluing, of escaping
the dead past. In other cultural contexts, it is reactionary, impertinent, cowardly,
stifling. — Susan Sontag

rare and costly books for a twelve-month together; in certain cases, advice and counsel; in other cases, the revising of proof sheets, the translation from foreign tongues, and the transcription of Elizabethan and Jacobean documents: - To the Rev. F. A. Russell, York, formerly of India; the Rev. Edmond Nolan, B.A., St. Edmund's House, Cambridge; the Rev. Richard Sharp, S.J., Skipton-in-Craven, Yorks.; the — Henry Hawkes Spinks Jr.

I believe Jack Smith might have written THE BOOK on writing and revising for publication. Clean, direct, succinct
a book that is full of pure wisdom and truth, but also amazing technical advice. — Virgil Suarez

Once I start writing, I am a huge reviser. To me writing is revising. I probably turn over every sentence that I write, to see if I have the rhythm right. That's why my first drafts take a really long time. — Matt De La Pena

I love the students - they are remarkable, inspiring people. I would miss teaching if I stopped doing it. The kind of work I do is pretty diverse: I can cast a play while doing a polish of a screenplay, while thinking about a new play and revising another. In other words, the kind of work that I do during my work day is not just writing, yet it is all part of the job of being a playwright. — Donald Margulies

I love revising things, because you see how you can get the language to get closer to intention. You know there are three ways to say X thing, but one will say it better than the other two. And in saying it better, it gets you closer to something. — Claudia Rankine

During the day, if I don't have any other commitments, I'm usually at my desk writing, revising, or researching anywhere from four to six hours. — Gail Tsukiyama

Unfortunately, throughout the housing crisis we've seen innocent homeowners who have been victims of shady mortgage lenders and unscrupulous individuals who have used a down market to line their own pockets at the expense of others. This bill is designed to send a message by revising our laws to ensure criminals are brought to justice and that law enforcement has the tools to uncover these fraudulent schemes and go after the bad actors. Criminals should be put on notice that ripping off homeowners and taxpayers won't be tolerated. — Chuck Grassley

From so much self-revising, I've destroyed myself. From so much self-thinking, I'm now my thoughts and not I — Fernando Pessoa

The rigors of creativity - the self-doubt, the revising, the solitude - do require a kind of self-consumption. It comes at a cost; a cost that isn't for everyone. — David Rakoff

I work on one page, revising and polishing until I can't make it better, then move on to the next. Some pages might get 20 or more drafts before I move on. — Dean Koontz

It seems the deeper, truer personality of the artist only emerges in the making of decisions ... in refusing and accepting, changing and revising. — Bridget Riley

When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done. — Stephen King

I personally am a 'discovery writer,' as we're termed, someone who plans the book by writing it and then revising the entire thing. When it comes to saga, this means writing large chunks of prose before any of it coalesces into a book. — Katharine Kerr

If things are going well I can easily spend twelve hours a day writing, but not writing writing, just thinking and revising and taking a comma out and putting it back in. — Francine Prose

One of Cranmer's goals in writing and revising the Book of Common Prayer was to get Scripture into the ears of the people so that their hearts might be turned to God and their lives transformed by his love. Cranmer — Michael Jensen

Before you deride the "mainstream media," note that it is no longer the mainstream. It is derision that is mainstream and easy, and actual journalism that is edgy and difficult. So try for yourself to write a proper article, involving work in the real world: traveling, interviewing, maintaining relationships with sources, researching in written records, verifying everything, writing and revising drafts, all on a tight and unforgiving schedule. — Timothy Snyder

Sometimes it's hard to know when you've crossed the line from conscientious to compulsive. When you're in the thick of an assignment, it's easy to believe that you must spend so much time brainstorming, researching, writing, testing, revising or what-have-you. Often, it's only after you've been working for hours on end that you realize that half the work you've been doing wasn't actually necessary and that you've just wasted a lot of time. — Michael Law

Our past is a novel that we are constantly revising. — Eric G. Wilson

It is quite clear from what has been said and written that, time after time after time, there has been a conspiracy between the Conservative Front Bench in this House and the inbuilt Conservative majority in the House of Lords to defeat legislation that has passed through the House of Commons ... I warn the House of Lords of the consequences ... it is our strong view that the House of Lords should recall that its role is not that of a wrecking chamber, but of a revising chamber. In recent weeks, it has been wrecking legislation passed by this House. — James Callaghan

Never think of revising as fixing something that is wrong. That starts you off in a negative frame of mind. Rather think of it as an opportunity to improve something you already love. — Marion Dane Bauer

Ever since 'Strange Heaven,' I haven't really reread my old work. Not so much because I don't like the writer I was, or because I find flaws in the writing, but more because I get so burnt out on a novel once I've finished writing, revising, editing and copy editing it that I genuinely never want to look at it again after it's gone to press. — Lynn Coady

I keep writing and rewriting, drawing and redrawing, and rethinking and revising and reediting. It became my grieving ceremony. — Sherman Alexie

Judaism, for example, presents itself as monotheistic and retrofits that claim on its history by revising its lore. But in ancient times, Judaism was much more accurately Henotheism, wherein people (particularly common folk) worshipped a principal god while accepting the existence of other deities, or Monolatrism, where many gods were acknowledged, but only one worshipped. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Let me try," he said, and he took the ends and positioned
himself in front of her mirror.
She watched him for about two seconds before declaring,
"You're going to have to go home."
His eyes did not leave the reflection of his neckcloth in the
mirror. "I haven't even got past the first knot."
"And you're not going to."
He gave her a supercilious look, brow quirked and all.
"You're never going to get it right," she pronounced. "I must
say, between this and your boots, I am revising my opinion on the
impracticalities of couture, male versus female."
"Really?"
Her gaze dropped to his boots, polished to a perfect shine. "No
one has ever had to take a knife to my footwear."
"I wear nothing that buttons up the back," he countered.
"True, but I may choose a dress that buttons in the front,
whereas you cannot go out and about without a neckcloth. — Julia Quinn

You cannot simply tap your creative nature once and then expect to be done with it. It is a lifelong process: a continual commitment to being open to possibility, trusting your instincts, experimenting, taking risks, and revising. — Fran Sorin

The monsoon came, six months
of infinite rain. The towns I once knew
were wiped clean,
and everyone said it was God
revising his poem. — Eric Gamalinda

I write very raw, ugly, illiterate first drafts very quickly (novels are always in first draft in under a year) and then I spend years and years fine-tuning, revising, editing, etc. What inspires me? Who knows. I am not inspired that much. That's why I write long form fiction - I am not much of a short story writer. Ideas come seldom, but when a good one comes, I really stick to it and see it out. I'm a problem-solver - I've never thrown out an entire manuscript; I've always forced myself to repair it until it was a lovable thing again. — Porochista Khakpour

[While designing] I'm mixing two lines of thought really: me as a designer for women and then me as a man. At the start of the design process it's the designer for women that comes to the forefront - sketching and revising the silhouette. Then the man comes into the picture - and I look at the shoe from a very masculine point of view. Then there is a conflict between the two sides of me. Sometimes the man wins, and sometimes the designer wins. — Christian Louboutin

I think the hard work of writing is just how long a book is terrible before it's good."--Leigh Bardugo — Leigh Bardugo

Writers often torture themselves trying to get the words right. Sometimes you must lower your expectations and just finish it. — Don Roff

I enjoy writing plays most. I haven't written a radio play in a while and I don't write short stories anymore because the process of submitting them depressed me. I really enjoy revising novels, but drafting them can be a pain. — Sefi Atta

I don't write a quick draft and then revise; instead, I work slowly page by page, revising and polishing. — Dean Koontz

I have a hard time revising sentences, because I spend an inordinate amount of time on each sentence, and the sentence before it, and the sentence after it. — Chang-rae Lee

Even if you're in the thick of revising another work, write something new. Something small. It's important to keep telling yourself stories. — Don Roff

Bryce Zabel and I went down the road of revising the Kennedy historical record together on the NBC seriesDark Skies. This time instead of giving new meaning to the established JFK chronology, hes created a brand new one altogether.Surrounded by Enemiesis an exhilarating ride, full of twists and turns that never were, but surely could have been. — Melissa Rosenberg

Men have jobs, while women have Roles: Mother, Wife, Goddess, Temptress, etc. That's probably why it's so hard for women to rewrite the rules. You're not just changing a job description, but an ancient myth. You're revising the Bible, Poetry, Legend and Psychoanalytic Scripture. — Caryl Rivers

Revising objectives is smart because it stops you throwing good money after bad. — Lee Child

I probably spend 90% of my time revising what I've written. — Joyce Carol Oates

My mind skipped to a sunlit Saturday morning a few months ago when Noah was supposed to be revising for his exams. I caught him looking out the window instead, distracted by a roving butterfly. "Noah, you're supposed to be studying!" I scolded.

He replied languidly, "I am! I'm studying what's out there. — Monica Lim

She liked her pieces to have something from every time of day in them - she didn't trust things written in the morning only - so she reread and rewrote painstakingly. No part of a day - its moods, its light - was allowed to dominate. She hung on to a piece for a year sometimes, revising at all hours, until the entirety of a day had registered there. — Lorrie Moore