Let Go revisions/re-writes

Since people seem to like when I post my drafts of poems and songs, I thought I’d post a few pictures of the re-write/revision process. These last re-writes have been really difficult especially to incorporate all my classmates’ feedback. As I learned, it’s one thing to know what you need to work on. It’s another to actually try and fix it.

With this song, the revisions were really difficult to do. I knew what I wanted to convey, but I got so caught up in images and showing rather than telling that it locked me out of writing anything for a long time. Eventually, I finished it, but there are still lines in the revision that I don’t like very much, and in some ways, I almost prefer the previous draft because I feel it flowed better.

Anyway, I wrote down everyone’s feedback onto one sheet and looked through them all that way, which seems to work for my revision process. Here are all my messy notes, scribbles, and questions for a song called “Let Go”. Front and back pages.

Re-writing songs

I don’t like it.

Maybe it’s just my process of doing it, but I don’t like it.  I should probably say, more specifically, that I’m not a fan of re-writing lyrics.  In general, lyrics have never been my strong suit.  Today, as I was forced to re-write lyrics for my final portfolio for the class, I found it extremely difficult and not very pleasant.  I wonder if I should say that in the little blurb I have to write about my revision process.

I think part of it is the coercion (perhaps that’s too strong a word to use here) to write songs and then re-write them.  I’ve always thought that good songs will naturally come to you, and many songwriters will agree with that statement.  It makes sense, then, that if you’re forced to re-write a song, it probably won’t be very good.  Ugh.

I’m happy to re-write a creative non-fiction piece, or my TV pilot, or even a fiction piece I’m not very attached to.  But re-writing lyrics in a form that can be very (too?) structured, is enough to make me spend an entire day thinking of rhymes for “spot”.  Which is not a good thing, if that wasn’t clear.