Work for Tinkers’ Hands: Write Chaotic, Edit Surgical.
Because the power of the iterative process can not be denied, I am reserving the right to edit posted work.
I love to tinker. I am ruled by Mercury.
I am meant to craft, observe, fine tune and improve.
It is firmly in my nature and I don’t fight it.
In previous professional work, published reports were essentially in a permanent draft state, allowing for updates when new information is available. This was rather unconventional for the field and often confused folks looking for the “final” version.
I’m adopting this concept. I don’t want to feel constrained by the publish button. I will revisit and retool when a better idea comes into vision, or when new insight is gained about a subject.
I see no shame in an edit. I can admit when I’m wrong. I already tweaked my last posted poem twice and it feels great! It’s more accurate to me now.
Continuous improvement is a cornerstone of living for me.
It’s all an experiment.
A refinery.
Raw material processed when production line workflow allows. A quality product, impurities removed, value added.
An antenna, a satellite.
Orbit around. The transmissions come when they come. Through clear airways, static, cosmic debris. Tuning, receiving and decoding.
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Knowing the door is open for revisions is a comfort that will empower me to click publish without the hem & haw, or the reading and re-reading 5x protocol I used to typically put my work emails through.
Despite this freedom, I won’t make a habit of happy-to-glad changes, or continually returning to fuss over older work.
Perfection is not real and not the goal, and I trust myself to know when something is in it’s final form and right, for the foreseeable future.
What new work will come if I am peering back, looking for a nit to pick? I am fascinated by the creative process and prolific writers, and prolificacy is fueled only by new output.
But I know and I know myself. Sometimes you think it’s done then realize there is a whole other part. Sometimes, it keeps pouring.
You are a flowing bowl. Can’t stop it, even if you tried.
A light bulb continually clicking on.
Is it “write drunk, edit sober”? No, Julia Cameron would be disappointed in continuing that adage and so am I. We need a revamped version.
A one-man-band forming, storming, norming, performing. That is what writing often feels like to me. Swirling emotions and thoughts.
Creation is chaotic, ideas may burst out of you like a bullet. Watching live, an operating theater, but not meatball surgery for musings.
Writing is triage. When you feel everything, it spills out. Without discernment, and separating what to keep with pain-staking precision, it’s just a gut pile.
My paper journals, my laptop files, my notes app. That is where the true creative chaos lives and where I will keep most of it.
You’ve got to work through the bad ideas to get to the good ones. The path only appears once you’ve started walking, even if you have no fucking idea where you are going. Follow your own golden apple. Try, if you dare.
Let the chaos come, let it do its worst, then survey the scene, and perform surgical strikes. See what shakes out in the process. You might be able to stitch it up just right.
Write chaotic, edit surgical.
❤️🔥💫🍀
