I would be surprised if there was one of us in the class who has never been torn apart in a workshop. It seems inevitable and absolutely a part of the learning process. I think this is what many of the students in The Emotional Work of Revision are referring to. This fear that showing peers unpolished work will leave us to be perceived as less than, or even poor writers. It is a valid fear as we each explore ourselves as writers and the world around us. This fear is founded in the teacher with the red pen, as we spoke about earlier in the semester. But, there is value to this process. The value lies in both sides, in my opinion. There is value in fearing being torn apart; it pushes each of us to bring our best work to the table. It encourages us to take the time to do on the fly revision, explore foggy topics, and find new ways of seeing subjects. The act of having a difficult workshop also grows us as writers, and becomes an important part of the process. No fighter walks into a championship fight without having their lights knocked out a few times first. The same goes for our writing. Professor Myers is referenced in the piece as encouraging an emotional venture into a messy first draft. I can't help but wholeheartedly agree. The first draft should often be an expulsion of all thoughts on the subject, a solid stone which we can carve a clearer picture out of. Yet, we must also be able to streamline our thoughts cohesively on a first try. How else can we sound eloquent at the dinner table?

The other piece, Composing Behaviors of One and Multi-Draft Writers, touches on this concept more thoroughly. I think there is something to be said about creating a first draft which is pleasing and illustrates the idea we are trying to illustrate. In fact, as I've said before, for much of my writing life I was a one draft writer. It seemed that by overworking a piece, the sincerity risked being lost. The writing became too technical, too emotionless. This process of revision, in my opinion, is reflective of the word replacement process. These examples were images or ideas I was too attached to but weren't operating in the intended manner. And so, we must reflect on what each piece of a piece is doing for the larger picture. We must adopt a universal view as well as an individualistic one. In many ways, this creates a schizophrenic revision process with advanced writers. One in which each syllable is moving the piece forward and deserves focus. Yet, the larger picture must always be in tighter focus. We must live in each moment and know our arc all the way to the end.

This level of revision is difficult for an individual. How can we truly create such a distance between ourselves and a piece we have written that we can possibly perceive a stranger's understanding? We can certainly reflect and improve technical parts of a piece: clarity, flow, arc. But, how can we remove the intended underlying meanings from our already fully developed preconceptions? This is when sharing becomes important. This is where we as writers must face the fear of getting emotionally rampaged by our peers and know that an audience intended piece was never for us, we already know what we are trying to say, but for those who haven't seen the world through our lenses yet.