12-02-2012, 10:08 PM
The truth about edits is you mostly get poems to a certain point and say: Yeah it's done. And it is. You'll set it aside for a month or so, and then decide to read it again. You'll have gotten better, or you just have the perspective of a bit of distance from it and you'll see problems throughout. So, you'll fix those and then say: Done. The cycle repeats. I tend to do between 10 and 100 tweaks on any poem. Some are longer edits, but most are fixing the five to ten issues that crop up.
After you get the obvious things fixed (spelling, punctuation, basic clarity), it's usually good to just sit it down for a at least a week or two and than come back to it.
Just thoughts everyone's process is different.
After you get the obvious things fixed (spelling, punctuation, basic clarity), it's usually good to just sit it down for a at least a week or two and than come back to it.
Just thoughts everyone's process is different.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson