Look at Everything Twice - Editing

I had a job interview this week. I was struggling getting over a cold, overwhelmed by what I had missed at work while I was out, so I really didn't feel it went well. However, my boss told me afterwards that I undersold myself. I'm pretty sure I sold myself as a babbling idiot, so that's hopefully true. 

When I'm asked a question I'm not totally sure on or not prepared for, I just start talking and then find my brain running behind going, 'What the hell is she on about? Somebody stop her!' Luckily, it was interviewing for the job I've been doing for the past two years on a temp contract, so they know I am not an idiot, though maybe also know I'm prone to babbling. 

This is why I feel comfortable as an editor, especially of my own writing. In writing my poems, I often don't know what I'm saying until I have the meandering mess of it down on paper or screen and can sort it out, clean it up, take out the waffling that isn't needed, the details that are just too off the wall or unclear. 

I do the same thing with emails, write it all out then edit it appropriately. I have, in the past, sent out those in the moment, emotional, unfocussed, unedited emails and it never ends well, so I always try to pull back and look a second time. 

I may have mentioned on this blog before that idea as my best piece of advice every given me, 'Look at everything twice'. It was said to me by a Holocaust survivor I met when I was working in a bookshop in my small university town. She came in some Sundays to buy the big papers and chat. One day as she was leaving, she grasped my arm and said this and it's always stuck with me. 

I've never considered the phrase in terms of my love of editing. I've always just thought of it as take a moment to appreciate what's around you, the small things we overlook. By looking twice at anything, we understand it better and our place in it. We should spend that extra time to consider what we're seeing, doing and saying. 

This applies to our writing as well. Slow down and consider. I need to do that when I speak as well it seems. 

I'm still doing the GloPoWriMo - the Global Poetry Writing Month - write a poem a day challenge. I've had a few days that I've managed to get a good basis for a poem, others were I just have a few stanzas with interesting images, but no connection at the moment. I'll give them second looks after the challenge is over. 

‪Day 12

there is no full retreat

climb out of honesty

and disconnect like an island

I insist that the earth tilts

in my favour for at least one day

Day 11 

i loved you in flannel

before grunge

bookending my school crushes

from first grade to high school

you sketched a perfect circle

without me

Day 10 

this landscape is where I fall to my knees

wishing for more

the season as thin as a line drawing

trailing the marks I leave behind

‪

Day 9 a snippet inspired by a typo on my son’s Shelley essay. 

Explode the Monstrous

Peel back my skin and see

how I’ve tied my sinews into knots over you.

I’ve offered my eyes to the ravens

and cast the bones,

but I cannot give you flesh.

‪Day 8 

the darkness expands

unpacking overheard whispers 

muffling me 

in a heavy blanket

I carve out worm-space

to shoulder myself free

‪Day 7 

hands dancing over desire lines 

of whipcord flesh

pickpocketing the mystery

the awe of you

Some fun ideas in there I'll enjoy playing with later on. How are you getting on with the challenge so far?