Editing and labor pains

The first thing I want to say is that I know absolutely nothing about labor pains.  More accurately, all of my information is anecdotal, and not something about which I'm going to attempt to sound expert.

Why this subject line, then?  Because I've heard and read so many writers talking about the two in tandem that the phrase just naturally flowed off my fingertips to the keyboard.  Once they were on screen, I decided NOT to edit, because someone might see the phrase and say "Hey, I'll bet he's got a lot to say about labor pains!" and come read the blog post.  Either that or someone might say "Hmm ... I can't want to see what crazy ideas he's got about labor pains."  Granted, there's a third possibility - that people would say "Eh ..." and move on.  But then, if you're one of the (many) people likely to do that, you're not actually reading this, are you?  The only thing I can say with any certainty is that, while editing is long and intense, I'm sure labor pains are about a thousand times worse.  There, now I'm done with that.

What I do want to say is this - I really thought I'd gotten a handle on editing on a computer screen and keyboard.

For many years, I'd done all of my "real" writing on paper, then transcribed it to the screen. After it was on screen, I saved, printed, and then edited, on paper and by hand.  I love having the words down on paper first - especially if I'm writing poetry.  It just feels much more natural to me.  Also, if I'm struggling at the keyboard, I can't switch hands and ostensibly switch hemispheres to get myself over the hump.  I know - there's less of a hemispheric divide than previously thought, but that doesn't stop me from pretending it exists and trying to make use of it.

So, now, I write directly on screen, and the process just hums along most days, and I've been feeling so liberated.  Sure, I've left behind something I really enjoy, but I've also left behind the drudgery of transcribing my handwriting to the screen, then printing it all out again and editing it, pen in hand, over and over.  I've spent many an hour, patting myself on the back over the trees I'm saving by printing out virtually no paper.

But there's a 2-3 page post I've been struggling with the last couple of days.  I thought I'd gotten it nearly right, nearly ready to post, when I decided to print it and finish the editing by hand.  After all, it's only a couple of pages, and I can finish it on the go, right?

Wrong.  My expectation of a splash of red ink here and there turned into a massacre.  What looked good enough on the screen suddenly looked not only convoluted but lifeless, like a mannequin carelessly tossed down a flight of stairs.  I guess there really is, for me, still a difference between good enough for pixels and electrons and good enough for real, honest to God paper.  Not that I'd completely forgotten that.  Our library of nearly 2000 real books bears testimony to that truth.

But now, the last 75,000 - 100,000 words I've committed to big writing projects look extremely suspect.  I'm afraid to look in the cabinet and discover what cadaverous verbiage I've locked away.  I don't want to see it; I don't want to smell it, but I'm fairly certain that a lot of red ink is going to end up getting spilled in carving them into proper condition, going forward.

Oh well.  (Not the words I actually used when I discovered this truth, by the way. Those words now have a big red line through them - at least in this draft.)