Revision Process Quotes & Sayings

What force is yanking at our sleeves? This process of self-revision and self-correction is so common we don't even notice. But it's a miracle. — Steven Pressfield

As fog moved to the mainland I heard a flock of birds fly over. They sounded like a dress rustling, a dress being unfastened and dropping to the floor. Fog came unpinned like hair. On the beach cliffs, great colonies of datura - jimson weed - with their white trumpet flowers, looked like brass bands. — Gretel Ehrlich

Phases of the creative process: Preparation-gathering impressions Incubation-letting go of certainties Immersion/Illumination-creative intervention/risk Revision-conscious structuring and editing of creative material. — Gail Sheehy

Sometimes a fresh perspective is all you need to get a second wind on the revision process. Try viewing your material on a different medium; it will shed a new light on the inconsistencies in the dark. — V.S. Watson

Switches among identities occur in response to changes in emotional state or to environmental demands, resulting in another identity emerging to assume control. Because different identities have different roles, experiences, emotions, memories, and beliefs, the therapist is constantly contending with their competing points of view. Helping the identities to be aware of one another as legitimate parts of the self and to negotiate and resolve their conflicts is at the very core of the therapeutic process. It is countertherapeutic for the therapist to treat any alternate identity as if it were more "real" or more important than any other.

Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision — James A. Chu

I'm always writing. I'm an obsessive. It's not because I'm a disciplined person. It's because I'm crazy about it. — Hanif Kureishi

I don't know why they call them Cheerios, I ate an entire box and didn't feel any happier!! — Neil Leckman

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

So for me the approach has become to go into a story not really sure of what I want to say, try to find some little seed crystal of interest, a sentence or an image or an idea, and as much as possible divest myself of any deep ideas about it. And then by this process of revision, mysteriously it starts to accrete meanings as you go. — George Saunders

The process of democracy is one of change. Our laws are not frozen into immutable form, they are constantly in the process of revision in response to the needs of a changing society. — Thurgood Marshall

If all else fails,' I would say to Noelia in the periodic moments when it seemed that this time I wasn't going to finish an article, let alone get through the protracted process of revision, sending, editing, rejection, guaranteed humiliation, etc., etc., that academic life implies, 'let's go and live by the sea and I'll grow papayas. — Laia Jufresa

I was very disappointed that Denzel didn't win Best Actor for The Hurricane because I thought he deserved it. — Norman Jewison

I place a lot of emphasis on process and revision because I believe that all of my students can become better writers through hard work. — Cate Marvin

A scar on the heart will heal.
Let your love remain pure as if it was never cut in the first place. — Aline Alzime

So, the process of revision, it's not systematic. But for me, I mean, I know a lot of poets who write out a draft and then revise it and I think they're happier people. But, I'm just not able to do it that way. I need to just continually examine it as I do it. — Edward Hirsch

This idea of repetition and revision is central to my working process-this idea of stacking and layering and building up densities and recoveries. — Ellen Gallagher

For me writing is an organic process that starts with engaging the language and then thinking about the structure of the novel as you move along. Especially in revision you start to notice correlations. Things come up, not self-consciously, because you're busy feeling your way through sentences and trying to push the language into new places. — Dana Spiotta

But when it comes to most skills, failure is the only way to become better at something. Knitting teaches you that. You may have to unwind all of your stitches and start anew. That doesn't mean you've wasted your time. You learn from every stitch, even those that don't amount to anything. All writers should be made to knit a hat before they start writing a novel. It would help with understanding the importance of revision, and that the process is what can bring you the most — Alice Hoffman

You want to get your book to press. You rush it through. Revision number twenty - done. Do you really need twenty more? Yes. A half-baked book is a half-birthed child. It aborts, is put on life support; reviewers line the hall to pull the plug. — Chila Woychik

Revision is not the end of the creative process, but a new beginning. It's a chance not just to clean up and edit, but to open up and discover. The energetic prose comes about from all the energy that went into crafting it, I suppose. — John Dufresne

The homicide skipper that year was a Captain Gregorius, a type of copper that is getting rarer but by no means extinct, the kind that solves crimes with the bright light, the soft sap, the kick to the kidneys, the knee to the groin, the fist to the solar plexus, the night stick to the base of the spine. Six months later he was indicted for perjury before a grand jury, booted without trial, and later stamped to death by a big stallion on his ranch in Wyoming.
Right now I was his raw meat. — Raymond Chandler

I'm a passionate believer in revision, and a lot of my writing gets done during revision process. It isn't just tweaking: I tend to break it apart and remake it every time I do a new draft. — John Jeremiah Sullivan

She just kept hitting me in the head with her fists, over, and over and over. — David Gest

When it comes to your looks, the only option in this world that matters is yours. — Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

Oh how I wish I could be as obsessive as Carrie from 'Homeland' when I'm writing a book! That would save me a lot of trouble during the revision process. — Edan Lepucki

My apartment reflects my views as an architect. It is minimal, austere. The architecture doesn't impose itself upon you. The apartment is a stage for other things to take place. — Bernard Tschumi

Writers know all the good reasons for subjecting their work to a sharp trim. Early drafts are notorious for repetition, indirection and overdevelopment of the trivial. — Pamela Erens

Imperialism creates the illusion of wealth as far as the masses are concerned. It usually serves to hide the fact that the ruling classes are gobbling up the natural resources of the home territory in an improvident manner and are otherwise utilizing the national wealth largely for their own purposes. Eventually the general public is called upon to pay for all of this, frequently after the military machine can no longer maintain external aggression. — Jack D. Forbes

In working on a poem, I love to revise. Lots of younger poets don't enjoy this, but in the process of revision I discover things. — Rita Dove

Lie naked on the table, and let them cut. Criticism is surgery, and humility is the anesthetic that allows you to tolerate it. In the end, the process will make you a stronger, more flexible, and truly creative writer. It will replace attitude with genuine confidence, and empty arrogance with artistry. — Molly Cochran

Allen Ginsberg instructs: "First thought, best thought." Oh, to have my every spontaneous thought count as poetry! No draft after draft like a draft horse.
Clayton Eshleman, laughing, said, "'First thought best thought' is not 'First word best word ' Ginsberg does rewrite. I'm sure he does. — Maxine Hong Kingston

There would seem to be four stages in the composition of a story. First comes the germ of the story, then a period of more or less conscious meditation, then the first draft, and finally the revision, which may be simply 'pencil work' as John O'Hara calls it - that is, minor changes in wording - or may lead to writing several drafts and what amounts to a new work. — Malcolm Cowley

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

Constant work, constant writing and constant revision. The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge. What he takes in he takes in normally the way any person takes in experience. But it is what is done with it in his mind, if he is a real writer, that makes his art. — Gore Vidal

Sadder than the beggar is the man who eats alone in public. — Jean Baudrillard

Oh, Kenneth, Kenneth, believe me - there's nothing I'd rather do! I want like hell to tell you. But I can't. I quite literally can't. Because, don't you see, what I know is what I am? And I can't tell you that. You have to find it out for yourself. I'm like a book you have to read. A book can't read itself to you. It doesn't even know what it's about. I don't know what I'm about. — Christopher Isherwood

Credit ratings and risk weightings must undergo a thorough process of review and revision. No security or instrument on the planet should have a zero risk weighting. — Paul Singer

The process of revision should be constant and endless — Salman Rushdie