Quotes & Sayings About The Revision Process

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

Judges ... are picked out from the most dextrous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy, and having been biased all their lives against truth or equity, are under such a fatal necessity of favoring fraud, perjury and oppression, that I have known several of them to refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty by doing any thing unbecoming their nature in office. — Jonathan Swift

His voice is deep and gravelly. I once heard one of the girls say that he had the voice of a sex god, but because I've never really heard what a sex god sounds like, I can't verify that. — Melina Marchetta

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

For prying into any human affairs, none are equal to those whom it does not concern. — Victor Hugo

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

I've always thought elephants walk as if they have music being piped into their heads that no one else can hear. And from the roll of their hips and their swagger, I'm going to guess that the artist is Barry White. — Jodi Picoult

I felt Red's arm close around me like a shield against the rest of the world. His mouth was against my hair, and his heart thumped violently under my cheek. I shut my eyes, and held onto his shirt with both hands, and wept. — Juliet Marillier

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

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

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

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

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

You may have noticed that Turlough spent a great deal of time kept captive in various states of bondage. It was always a disappointment to me that there seemed to be no getting around this problem. — Mark Strickson

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

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

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

There are three qualities that make someone a true professional. These are the ability to work unsupervised, the ability to certify the completion of a job or task and, finally, the ability to behave with integrity at all times. — Subroto Bagchi

I forget. I don't see. I don't think. — Fernando Pessoa

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

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

GET THAT CRAZY-ASS MULLET OFF YA SKULL — Wesley Willis

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

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

Kaysen elaborates through parts of the book on her thoughts about how mental illness is treated. She explains that families who are willing to pay the rather high costs of hospitalization do so to prove their own sanity. Once one member of the family is hospitalized, it becomes easier for the rest of the family to distance themselves from the problem and to create a clear boundary between the sane and the insane. Recognizing a family member or friend as insane makes others around them, says Kaysen, compare themselves to that individual. Hospitalization allows for distance from this questioning of self that makes us so uncomfortable. Her view that mental illness often includes the entire family means the hospitalized family member becomes an excuse for other family members not to look at their own problems. This explains the willingness to pay the high financial costs of hospitalization. — Susanna Kaysen

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

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

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

God has given you all you need to fight against the enemy. — Jim George

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

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