Re-Visioning: Let it Be (Part 3)

Alright, you've made those exquisite first tracks across the snowy page. You've slept by the campfire of your imagination and dreamed of excellence and perfection. Ancients whispered to you of genius in the night. But now, in the harsh light of a new day, you look at what you've created with a sense of horror. "Good Lord! I did that? My 8 year old nephew could write better than that!"

Take it easy. Things always look different under a bright light. Approach your work with respect and a certain amount of caution. You are changing outfits, becoming a surgeon where a mad artistic genius worked mere hours ago. It's a tricky business. If you aren't careful, you will remove something vital, cutting the very life from your new creation.

The first thing you want to do is transfer the piece from its initial scribblings on the back of a napkin or whatever into a form someone (you) can read and recognize. If, like me, you have the tendency once a computer keyboard is under your fingertips to immediately begin to revise, let someone else type the original into the file for you. Trade them something--like donuts--if you must, but don't do it yourself if you can't help messing with it. At this point, you do not want to change a thing. Copy it into the computer exactly the way it is written on the page.

Once the piece is reproduced in its entirety, print it. Changing nothing about it; simply print it. It is now, in some ways, a finished piece of work. No matter whether it seems like crappy work or great work, it is a complete entity that can be held in the hand. Read it several times over. Don't even hold a pen while you do this. When you're done, you will know whether this piece is worth keeping or not.

Here is your first opportunity to see again (re-vision) what you did the first time. Immediately, certain phrases will jump off the page, standing out like a drag queen in a biker bar. This is either delightful or out of place. Really, if you do as I suggest up to this point, you will know whether this particular work is worth the time, effort and energy you need to put into it to shape it into a finished work of art. Force nothing. Remember, you've got a million of 'em.

If, at this point you realize that it will cost you too much life to re-work the poem or essay or whatever into something both you and others can appreciate, do NOT despair. Never discount the value of what you have accomplished thus far. You have kept your promise to the Muse to meet her at the appointed time with pen or paints in hand. No matter that you do not like what you have done, or don't find it worth more time, the Muse will remember that you were there and you did as you promised. You kept your date.

This faithfulness will pay off eventually. Honor the positive energy of art you have put out into a world that needs creative thinking and beauty. Respect yourself for having the passion and the grit to keep carving into the stone, creating records for an uncertain future. Some might call it crazy. I call it courage.

Next time, we will go into what to do if you like the piece and want to pick up your chisel and work on it, attempt to make it all it can be. Do not throw away what you have produced this time, however. Store it, save it in a file. Return to it later. There may be something hidden inside, a pearl in that ugly oyster, that will make the perfect necklace eventually. Save it and know the world was fed because you gave into the impulse to play a little God and create something from Scratch. Is that an oxymoron?

—Mendy Knott is a writer, poet and author of the collection A Little Lazarus (Half Acre Press, 2010). To order your copy of A Little Lazarus directly from the author, please click here.