On Revising Writing

I am terribly judgemental of myself. My motto is usually "Live and let live" for everyone else, but not myself. This is reflected, and magnified in my writing process. I can sit and write something, meaningless, an essay for most classes in fifteen minutes. However, when it comes to creative writing, in which I am the Author with all original ideas, I put it off, always, until the last minute. I know that as soon as I sit to write something, I will obsess over it until the job is done. Hemingway said that all there was to writing was to sit at the typewriter and "bleed", but I'm not sure it is or ever will be that simple. Maybe it is, though.
For me, revising is difficult, as it takes time. To revise a piece that I have written, I need to be able to view it with objective, fresh eyes. I'll write something, and if I have the time, wait a few days, or maybe even a week, and view it again. The only problem with this, is if you are too far removed from the piece you have written, it is hard to be in the same mind-set, so you can end up tearing the entire piece apart until it looks nothing like the original piece, and the point that you were striving for in the first place is seemingly gone. So often, I just write, I steam my concious together as best as I can and hope something comes out of it, and if it does, excellent, and if it doesn't, well then, I guess I will just have to write again. There is a balance, for me, to revising, and that is, I often write in a very stream of concious style, however, I am constantly trying to be concise with the words I choose to put on the page. It is a constant balance, and I think one can go crazy trying to analyze what they write, so I try not to. In a way, I believe your words need to be allowed to live in the world you put them in. Therefore, I think too much editing and revising can destroy the initial word you created, and at some point it is worth it to get up and stop banging away at the keyboard. Then, start again until you get it right... And maybe, some of us will never get it right, but we don't, always need to make poetry with words on a page. Some of us are poets at everything we do, and that's good enough. But, if it isn't, then I think we should keep writing, always, until it says everything in the blank page's infinite way.

You Can't Go Home Again

I read On The Road when I was seventeen. Until that point, I knew I wanted to write, I knew I wanted to travel, and I knew I wanted to live, but, in a way, I didn't know how. I didn't know what it even meant to live, truly and deliberately. Kerouac's words changed everything. I'm writing this as, I suppose, an add on to my second paper, based off of trips that have changed us. In a way, it is hard to envision my life the way it is, without that novel, and Kerouac's narration on his own experiences as he traveled from New York to all over the West Coast.      "I like too many things and get all confused and hung up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anbody except my own confusion." When I read this line, I knew this is what I wanted, in a way. I wanted to be on the road, and I wanted freedom, I wanted moments that I would carry forever.
Two years, later, though, I can say that there is a price to pay for those memories. There are consequences to not truly having a singular home. I long for it all the time. I long for a place to call my own, that will be my foundation. It's hard to have lasting relationships always traveling, as well, as the strain of miles often tears them apart. I am always leaving, as soon as I land someplace. It makes for many long nights, with phonecalls revolving around the same question, "When will I see you, again?" And I never have a concrete answer. There are consequences to the choices we make, I just hope that where we end up is where we were always meant to be.