Monday 22 July 2024
As a writer having revised my Katyn manuscript for over two months, I often wondered what the ending of that process would look like. Even now, a week after announcing in my previous blog entry that I was “finished,” I’m not entirely sure that I am. How do I know that I completed my revision? What are the signs? My writing teachers taught me that writing is rewriting; however, when is revising finally a revised, final product? In that mad pursuit of reaching the “perfect draft,” a writer can revise eternally forever. Does the revised manuscript tell you when you’re done?
I followed and completed my revision plan, which should be an indicator that I’ve finished revising. I revised with discipline, energy, and purpose. I knew what needed to be done. According to that revision plan, I cut hundreds of pages but also added new material. My July 2023 Katyn manuscript was 635 pages, and my July 2024 revised Katyn manuscript is 571 pages. Reader, you may say, “Wait! The difference is only 64 pages. You said you cut hundreds of pages. Explain.”
I did cut out hundreds of pages, but in doing so, I created space for the new material. In that newly opened space, I was then able to add hundreds more pages, passages that were more revealing emotionally. In my previous, ten-week long series, The Revision Diaries, Iemphasized how important moving the reader emotionally through my words was. Diving deeper into the emotions became not only a revision goal but also an obsession. If I didn’t feel exhausted emotionally, my future Katyn book readers wouldn’t be either. I considered this emotional exhaustion to be my way of knowing whether I had finished revising or not.
Of course, the original draft was emotional; however, I was holding back for numerous reasons. King Arthur encouraged me to be less inhibited emotionally and by showing (and not telling) how those emotions shaped my Katyn experiences, thinking, and selfhood, the reader, too, would understand how emotionally important the Katyn Massacres were in shaping who I became. Therefore, I’ve accomplished my primary revision goal.
Another main goal of my revision plan for the Katyn manuscript was removing passages—entire chapters sometimes—that after a second (or seventh) reading, seemed irrelevant to the main narrative. Cutting certain chapters hurt because they held other deep, personal meaning for me. They were good pieces of writing; however, I had to ask the most difficult question of revision: does the draft still read well without those cut chapters? Answering “Yes” to that question hurt, too; however, I also felt relief, an unburdening, when I saw that the new draft looked stronger and more focused without them. I must do what’s best for the manuscript. And I like the new draft. I even left out content I planned to include but decided they didn’t propel the narrative or heighten the emotional depth.
So, I should be done revising. I should now be able to say: I am finished. But am I?
Last week, I printed 571 pages—the July 2024 revised Katyn manuscript—and mailed them to King Arthur for “one more look.” As I was standing in line at the post office, a terrible idea startled me: “Oh, no! I forgot to include that one piece on the cynical historian. What should I do?”
I decided to do nothing. Why?
I didn’t need to append the printout because that one piece on the cynical historian wasn’t worth it. I asked myself: “What would it have added to the manuscript? I already have numerous vignettes and extended chapters dramatizing my psychological and intellectual battles with cynics. Bringing in that additional but minor example—even if I had condensed that one-page piece into one paragraph—wouldn’t have satisfied my goal of making the reader feel deep emotions. That left-out piece didn’t meet that emotional standard; I didn’t feel it—therefore, the reader wouldn’t feel it. Therefore, I should now say: “I am finished,” right?
Some people attribute the following expression to Leonardo da Vinci: “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” This insight is profound because it captures my week-long (and I suspect this uncertainty will last longer than just a week) dilemma of being finished. I am not da Vinci, but if his Mona Lisa or Last Supper is an unfinished masterpiece, then my meager scribbling also must be an unfinished work. I think I understand what d Vinci means by “Art is never finished.” If art were finished being created by the artist, the art would stop being, stop being in process of becoming. Becoming is life, becoming is energy, becoming is movement. In the present tense, not past; it would continue becoming into the future. What if I had pasted that cynical historian piece in the revised Katyn manuscript? My “What if?” question keeps the manuscript in perpetual movement. The nagging question is: will the question keep the eventual book in perpetual movement?
On the other hand, I am not deserting or dispensing with or even disowning my revised manuscript. I know that the revised manuscript is ready to be itself as a book—its own artistic self—outside of myself, and find its new life, new home in the world. I am ready to help it find its home. It is finished with me. It must be.
My apprenticeship as a nonfiction writer has only begun. What about fiction writing? Therefore, onward to the next major writing project!