What is your editing process?

[unapologetic]

I'm trying not to be obsessive about editing a couple of my poems. I always feel like I'm picking my free verse to death but not re-examining my rhyming/form pieces enough. I think I'm scared I'll end up screwing with the meter or the rhyme scheme.

So, I thought I'd ask you all, since most of you have been doing this longer. (While I've been writing poetry on-and-off my whole life, I've only been serious for the last couple of months.)

 

[Liar]

My editing is virtually non existant. I check for errors, check if any line breaks are inconsistent and read the poem through out loud once. If it feels wrong, I think about why, and it's almost always because the poem wasn't based on a strong enough idea to begin with.

So then I scrap it and write another one. Or just scrap it and watch TV, cuz that's the kind of a lazy sod I am.

 

[WickedEve]

I edit too much. Not all of my poems, but I do get nuts with some of them and I edit obsessively. I sit for hours, changing the poem over and over. Sometimes for days. I don't think it's healthy for me or the poor poem. Fortunately, I'm not writing poetry at the moment. But I'm starting to feel the urge again. Damn.

 

[Angeline]

Oy, do I edit. I love editing. I've worked as an editor off and on for many years, and this definitely affects what I do with my poems. I think I have a very methodical approach because of it. Once I decide a poem is a keeper (and I've let scraps of writing hang unedited for up to, well years sometimes, while I make up my mind about that), I do at least four edits. First I look at the ideas to see if I've expressed them the way I want to and whether I have used precisely the words I want to express my idea. I think about all the devices of poetry--metaphor, alliteration, assonance: I'll use anything I can pull out of my hat to try to make the poem work better. Then I look at grammar; I make sure it's all correct. I'm especially concerned at this stage that I have the verb tenses right and that I'm consistent where I need to be. Next I look at punctuation. The last thing I do is think about line breaks. I ask myself whether I've broken the lines in the best possible way, so that I can express exactly what I want.

These four steps are not necessarily separate or exclusive--sometimes I do them one after the other, other times I do them all at once. In fact, I usually write the first draft very quickly and spend much more time on editing than on the first writing. If I think I'm losing the point of the poem in all these mechanics I put it away for a while until I have more perspective on the poem.

And I agree with Liar that if I think about what's wrong and feel like I can't fix it, it almost always means that I probably didn't have a good (or well developed) idea when I started writing.

When I'm writing form poetry, I usually refer to a few other poems in the same form to make sure I'm doing the it right.

 

[The_Fool]

1. I write the poem, making changes as required.
2. I read the poem all the way through, thinking about how it would sound.

At this point, all too often I quit and post. That is why sometimes later I decide what I wrote was shit, or have someone else tell me that it is shit.


If I do it right:

3. I let it sit for a few days and then reread.
4. I let someone else read that I trust.

By letting it sit, when you reread either you can recapture your mood or you can't. If you can't, then that poem was simply not meant to be. Letting someone else read it gets a new set of eyes that read what is there rather than what you expect to be there.

I don't have the formal educated background in literature that many have. Much of what I know, I have learned through observation, self-study and having my nose rubbed in my errors. Not that I am admitting to be uneducated, illiterate or stupid, just fooolish...

For Form Poetry, I typically go back and reread the rules, read some verse written in the specific form, read my own verse written in that specific form. To me, it has to be an American Bandstand mentality. It has to have a good beat that you can dance to. So you need to listen to the music to find the beat.

Ange and I have had this discussion several times about how we "think" in iambic pentameter. Once we get into the zone, the phrasing can come out correctly without counting it or worrying about the accents. But she is a geeky sonnet girl and I am a fool.

 

[Angeline]

1. I write the poem, making changes as required.
2. I read the poem all the way through, thinking about how it would sound.

At this point, all too often I quit and post. That is why sometimes later I decide what I wrote was shit, or have someone else tell me that it is shit.


If I do it right:

3. I let it sit for a few days and then reread.
4. I let someone else read that I trust.

By letting it sit, when you reread either you can recapture your mood or you can't. If you can't, then that poem was simply not meant to be. Letting someone else read it gets a new set of eyes that read what is there rather than what you expect to be there.

I don't have the formal educated background in literature that many have. Much of what I know, I have learned through observation, self-study and having my nose rubbed in my errors. Not that I am admitting to be uneducated, illiterate or stupid, just fooolish...

For Form Poetry, I typically go back and reread the rules, read some verse written in the specific form, read my own verse written in that specific form. To me, it has to be an American Bandstand mentality. It has to have a good beat that you can dance to. So you need to listen to the music to find the beat.

Ange and I have had this discussion several times about how we "think" in iambic pentameter. Once we get into the zone, the phrasing can come out correctly without counting it or worrying about the accents. But she is a geeky sonnet girl and I am a fool.

I wear my geekiness as a badge of honor (my father used to call me"geek," it was one of his nicknames for me).

And you didn't tell about the computer program--you're a geek, too!

 

[The_Fool]

I wear my geekiness as a badge of honor (my father used to call me"geek," it was one of his nicknames for me).

And you didn't tell about the computer program--you're a geek, too!

That was for Sestinas. I was trying to mentally block that form out...

 

[champagne1982]

They call her geeky in her editorial jazz ways
and he's just a fool of pentametric dances.
Joyous bell toes jingle while he prances
and stirs up the rhymes as the piano man plays.

Don't shoot him, he's just trying his best
to add a little harmony to the notes of the song
the melody plays 'til sestina comes along
striking dischord in their feathered nest

Of poetry and flowery turns of word and phrase
they bring the happy piano man the blues
of slide trombone and saxaphone brews
in the scotch and cigar smoke jazz bar haze.

They while away their hours and edit poetry
playing the game of geeky spineslip foolery.

 

[unapologetic]

I wear my geekiness as a badge of honor (my father used to call me"geek," it was one of his nicknames for me).

And you didn't tell about the computer program--you're a geek, too!

Like speaks to like, I guess. I'm a total geek: a dungeons and dragons-playing, multiple degree-having, ren faire attending geek.

Thanks for all the feedback I've gotten so far.

 

[Liar]

Ange and I have had this discussion several times about how we "think" in iambic pentameter. Once we get into the zone, the phrasing can come out correctly without counting it or worrying about the accents. But she is a geeky sonnet girl and I am a fool.

Yep, I can get that. When it comes to rhythm, any rhythm really. Once I'm into the right swagger, it comes naturally. As long as I can use whatever word I find, (I'm talking to you, cursed villanelle.) the iambs and trochees are seldom a problem.

 

[The_Fool]

They call her geeky in her editorial jazz ways
and he's just a fool of pentametric dances.
Joyous bell toes jingle while he prances
and stirs up the rhymes as the piano man plays.

Don't shoot him, he's just trying his best
to add a little harmony to the notes of the song
the melody plays 'til sestina comes along
striking dischord in their feathered nest

Of poetry and flowery turns of word and phrase
they bring the happy piano man the blues
of slide trombone and saxaphone brews
in the scotch and cigar smoke jazz bar haze.

They while away their hours and edit poetry
playing the game of geeky spineslip foolery.

Carrie, I think you should sit restrained between Ange and myself and then tickled by both of us into insensibility or until you are laughing hysterically in iambic pentameter, whichever comes first.

 

[wildsweetone]

i'll let you know about my editing when i feel i've let my oldest poem sit long enough in a dark drawer somewhere.

actually, i write fast (usually).

i read what i've written out loud in case i've written/typed the wrong word (a frequent occurrence).

i go back to it the same day and re-read and may alter a word or two, or a phrase or even a sentence.

i leave it and peep in the following day.

i leave it again until i am bored, or when i've time, or when i have distanced myself enough from the poem.

i'll check it over to make sure it makes sense.

then i'll go through and look at alliteration or partial rhyming or sounds to see if i can do anything to improve what i have.

now... all i need to do is print this post and follow through.