I'm Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

Revision is my favorite part of the writing process.

Of course, I love the rush of the new idea,

the honeymoon period with a poem or an essay,

when it's still sparkling.

But I especially enjoy the creative problem-solving that revision entails.

Coleridge wrote that poetry is the best words in the best order.

I enjoy the challenge posed by having the not best words in the not best order.

I find the challenge of revision invigorating.

It wakes my brain up in exciting ways.

To revise means literally to see again or to look at again. Revision is when we take another

look at what we've made and we see it anew. Each revision, ideally, gets us closer to the piece we sense is there, waiting.

But each revision can also pull us farther away from the initial spark that drove us to the page.

This tension, this push and pull, is exactly what makes revision dynamic and exciting. We are hunting

something, but we aren't quite clear about what it looks like or how to find it. I believe in the

magic of multiple revisions.

I also believe that we can over-revis.

We can look so hard for the finished piece

that we believe waits for us inside the messy draft,

that we scare it off.

We can polish it dull.

Sometimes we need to go back in order to move forward.

...