"It's What I Do, And Here's Why"

Not long ago, I did this weird thing I do now and then.

I rewrote a post I had already published.

Not the whole thing.  I changed one sentence.  I had to.  Even if no one would read it. Why?

Because it made the thing better.

I recently wrote a post about why I stopped taking pictures, explaining it was because it got too easy.  With the now available technology, you can take virtually perfect pictures.

Writing is – has been, and always will be – a “hand-made” operation.  It cannot be “technologically enhanced.”  It cannot ever be perfect.

That’s why it retains its appeal.

(There is a missing “descriptive” before “appeal”, but I cannot think what it is.  That’s the delicious challenge of writing – chasing the “White Whale” of a word.  Wait.  How about “… it retains its challenging appeal”?  Seems that’ll have to do, till the right word comes along.  And I will have to change “the delicious challenge of writing”, so it’s not “challenge” twice.  Do you see how tricky this is?)

Writing a not-long-ago post… wait! 

First, this.

When I worked on The Cosby Show­ – and one of the reasons I did not work on it long – was that we – Bill Cosby and I – would work out an episode’s storyline, then I would go off and write the episode myself. 

Then, three days before production – or less – Cosby would come in, puff his stultifying cigar and say,

“Y’know, Camille (Cosby’s wife) and I were talking about this last night, and it gave me a new way of doing it.”

He then laid out vastly alternative version of the episode, after which, I would go back and, in an intensely short period of time, rewrite the (totally viable) earlier draft.

I was furious, agonizingly “under the gun” for no explicably sensible reason. 

Except one.

The new version was better.

So I did it. 

I cursed loudly, but I did it.

This punishing process – passive-aggressively deliberate or otherwise – inevitably burned me out, and I was gone in short time.

Now… before I so rudely interrupted myself…

Writing a not-long-ago post, I wrote a first draft, and then, as is my habit, made hand-written revisions.  For some reason – possibly a subsequent post – I decided to count them. 

It turns out I had made fifty-seven revisions on the first draft of that post.  I type them onto the computer.  Reading the, now, second draft of the post, I make thirty-two subsequent changes, and I type them onto my computer.  I make twenty-three revisions after the third draft, and seventeen revisions after the fourth.

And then I am done.

Was there nothing more to revise?  Perhaps – or possibly – sure.  But my later revisions felt progressively smaller, I could imagine no worthwhile improvements, so I stopped.

Some changes were word changes – tightening deletions and clarifying additions.  Some changes were “typos”, some, left-behind words from earlier drafts, and some, “spacing” snafus.  Some changes were exclusively for “rhythm”, their belated inclusions requiring still further rhythmic adjustments.  (Someone recently asked if I ever write poetry, to which I haughtily, though not inaccurately, replied, “It’s all poetry.”)

(Poetry, and fooling yourself, believing it’s poetry.)

These changes – including punctuational changes –

and making two lines out of one –

oh, and adding italics as well –

all in the service

of making it better.

Not content to just rewrite myself, I sometimes rewrite other people as well.  (“Professional courtesy.”  No charge.)

For some time, I have been working on the 1950 Disney film Cinderalla’s “A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes” on the piano.  (Written by Mac David – who wrote the lyrics to Lawman – Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingston – who wrote the music to Lawman.)

One of the best lyrical “Openers” of all time:

“A dream is a wish your heart makes,

When you’re fast asleep…”

But at the end, it goes,

“No matter how your heart is grieving,

If you keep on believing,

The dream that you wish will come true.”

Upon no one’s request, I changed “The dream that you wish will come true” to

“The wish that you dream will come true.”

Why? 

Because you don’t “wish a dream.”

You “dream a wish.”

With that small though necessary adjustment,

I made the song better.

Don’t you think?

The joy of finding the precise word, or the ideal turn of phrase – while assiduously searching, or, more excitingly, after believing you have already found it –

That’s the elating fun part of writing. 

Knowing no matter what you’ve put down, it can always be better.

Wait.  “The elating fun part of writing?”

Lemme think here a moment.....