Thoughts on Revision

Revision, for me, is on par with beginning a piece as the most daunting aspect of the writing process. This may be a product of vanity, but I often think that laboring over punctuation or finding the perfect word is exhausting and in opposition to the whole creative ideal that I strive for. I recognize that most drafts are "shitty first drafts," I understand that fine tuning is essential, but for the most part I detest attempting to polish something that I've written. What I do enjoy about the process is going over what I've written previously and finding what strikes me, what compels me to write more. It could be one sentence out of a whole piece, but if that sentence actually moves me, it becomes less of a chore and more an exercise in crafting something new around the part that I love. Reading out loud to myself has proven to be a very effective means of determining whether something is worthy, or whether it is two pages of bullshit with one viable sentence. I would love to imagine myself as one of the gifted few who write brilliant drafts without the need for any tinkering, but this is a fantasy that wouldn't be doing me any favors. Spending that extra time with something that I've written leaves me with much more invested, and an appreciation for the prose that I may not have had if I just wrote it and left it alone. I ultimately have to remind myself on a regular basis to seek out the joy I feel for writing in the process of revision, because the end result is a more critical eye and a strengthened piece.