How revision, mindset work, and my dislike of baking helped me rediscover my love for writing by Chelene Knight
I have always loved creative cooking (not using recipes), but find myself completely lost when it comes to the art of baking. The only time getting lost was fun, was when it was in between the pages of a good book. As a young, introverted child, books were my comfort food. I used to dream about the school bell ringing at the end of day so that I could go to the school library and hang out in the adult fiction section. I’d pull books off the shelf and stare at their covers. Run my tiny little fingers down their spines. Flip the pages letting the musty scent hit my nostrils. I think I was cookin, even then. Paying attention to each and every sensory detail. But of course as I would come to learn later, there is always more to that initial experience. There was work to be done in order to fully understand how all these ingredients worked together to create a finished book.
When my reading obsession shifted to that of writing, I had no idea what revision was or why it was necessary. When I put pencil to paper, I thought that what made its way onto the page was it. Final. Done. It had to be exciting and delicious that first time around. No do-overs. But as time marched on, I found myself being part of discussions around the act of editing, but it was always unclear what editing truly involved. Editing just meant fixing punctuation and spelling mistakes, right? And this ignorance didn’t dissipate after grade school. It followed me through high school and post secondary.
It wasn’t until I took my first creative writing course that I learned that revision was actually where the real writing began. Anyone can sit down and draft something. Does that make them a writer? Nope. Instead it's that desire to go back and make a piece of writing … better—this happened when the creator rolled their sleeves up and slipped their hands in the dough.
But if revision was where the actual writing took place, then what the heck was the drafting? For me, I have always looked at the drafting as the gathering of ingredients. So, if I was going to bake a pie I would pull out the bag of flour, grab some eggs, butter and begin to set them on the counter (I mean, if it were me I would just buy the pie because I do not bake, but I digress). Drafting is simply getting a few components on the table.
Oh Okay! I can do that.
“You’d better learn to embrace and love the mess that is the first draft,” is something I recall one of my first writing mentors saying to me as she marked up my pages (back when we did things in person, by the way). Another instructor took it one step further and told me that the mess of the first draft does not end there. That mess actually follows you around for at least two or three more drafts. Ok, things were getting real. “So you mean to tell me that when I sit down to write and sketch my initial ideas on the page that it’s OK for it to be in bullet points? It’s OK not to have a clear style right away? It’s OK not to have a solidified structure?”
I felt myself relax at this revelation. But I was slightly annoyed that I did not learn this until I was in my 20s.
But over the years, although I was recognizing the mess (and embracing it, like my teachers and mentors had suggested), I still experienced pangs of insecurity, imposter syndrome, and was often downright disgusted with my work. I’d sit in the library or in a café and angrily rip pages out of my notebook and ball them up dramatically. I’d scratch out all of my early ideas—especially after reading something awesome online.
But when I slowed down enough to ask myself “What is this really? What is going on in my head?” I could see clear as day that I was comparing my early drafts to the polished books I used to pull from the shelf as a young girl. But that comparison was not realistic. No one ever SEES each other's process! We never see the many many drafts. We rarely hear the writer’s frustration, and we definitely do not see how established writers climb out of the negative self-talk. I had to do this work for myself and stop expecting everything to be perfect and easy all the time. I had to learn how to build up my mindset muscle so that I could not only pull myself out of the deep dark valleys of self doubt, but so that I could also slow down enough to assess exactly what needed to be done to move me from one draft to the next and make the super important editorial decisions that would help my voice pop off the page.
This mindset work needs to happen in small steps, over and over again. I started with affirmations. I felt silly at first, but it started to become organic. I then built a writing process and aligned my writerly collaborators. Things started to feel real. I built a list of what counted as writing for me. This list included things like taking my dog for a walk, talking about writing with clients and students, and of course, cooking. I asked myself: What were all the writing-adjacent activities that contributed to what made its way on the page? I did some reflective writing around how to lift myself out of a funk when I hit creative barriers.
Then I applied these same techniques to my revision process, and I scheduled super manageable, clear, and focused revision passes. I didn’t have to do everything at once. Revision could be broken up into small chunks. I noticed that I enjoyed the work because it was not all-consuming. Hmm.
When I got to the next draft and I was ready for another pair of eyes, I went back to the mindset work I’ve done. I slowed down and mapped out the exact type of feedback I was looking for, based on where I was with the draft. For example, if this was a fresh piece that I just wrote while on the bus, then maybe I am only looking for very general feedback about the tone. Or maybe it’s a piece I have been working on for years. This will require the reader to look deeper and at the micro level.
This way of writing and revising not only eased my fears around what the reader would say and think about my work, but it gave me some parameters to plan for future revision and it also increased my confidence as a writer. I was undoubtedly excited about going back into the work because I was picking out the ingredients that I wanted. I was building a process that worked for me as an individual. I was looking inward and that was the foundational work that no one seemed to teach me back when I was that young girl trying to write stories after reading thick novels on the library floor.
I still don’t like baking pies, but I can make a mean pot of chilli. I gather my ingredients, I take the time to let them connect in the pot. I add more salt if I need it because it’s not going to be perfect that first time around. I let it simmer. I ask others to taste it too. If they don’t like how spicy it is, I have a decision to make: do I add more water to please them? Or do I let that spice burn the back of my throat? Slowing down and allowing myself the unique mindset tools I needed in order to decide is such a powerful move.
Do you want to explore the foundational mindset work writers need in order to create in a healthy way for life? Check out the work we are doing inside of the forever writers club, or connect with me here.
Chelene Knight is the founder of Breathing Space Creative. She is a writer, editor, and previously worked as a literary agent.
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