kfitz

In Revision

Yesterday morning, I closed comments on the open review of Generous Thinking. I’m enormously grateful to everyone who took the time to read and give me feedback on the project: 30 commenters left a total of 354 comments (and prompted 56 responses of my own). I have a good bit of insight into what’s working well and what needs improvement in the manuscript, and I’m excited about the possibilities ahead as I embark on the revision process.

Getting started on revising a piece of writing is always daunting for me. The draft feels complete, and it usually holds together and works as a thing, if imperfectly, and the beginning of the revision process almost always involves breaking that completeness, that thingness, in order to open it up and rethink how it works. I resist initially, not so much because I don’t think the thing could be better but because I worry that breaking it open will wind up making things worse, that I won’t be able to do the hard transformational work of putting it back together in a new way.

That initial leap, hard as it is, almost always pays off; once I get into the revision process I usually find myself excited by the patterns that I couldn’t see before, the new ways that ideas can be drawn together. But it’s still a leap, one that requires a deep breath (and a good cup of coffee) before diving in.

Thanks to everyone, again, who read and commented and linked to the draft. The discussion will remain up and available, if you’re curious about how it went, and the general comments remain open if you have further thoughts I should take into consideration. I’ll look forward to sharing some of my thoughts from the revision process as things proceed.

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