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How do I know if an essay is “done”
It’s seven thousand words
What is that quote about the words bleeding....is that anything
Sorry I’m sorry I’m trying to delete it
I swear to god I know the answer to this one
I looked at a nearly finished draft today and realized I forgot everything I knew about writing
ok, I slept and I know the answer for myself. There are a few kinds of done. There& #39;s the "done" of reaching the end of the draft, when I know I feel like I found the door out of a completely unlit room after fumbling around for the knob. Then there& #39;s also:
The "done" of having the essay revised after that, because I have to go back and get everything working in harmony in light of finding the end. That is where I was stuck yesterday.
Image 1 is the first kind of done and image 2 is the second
Image 2: I intend for my essays to work by having all the pieces connected to the other pieces by multiple threads, basically, and so I have to go back through and make sure everything is answering the narrative question / is connected to multiple other things
Yesterday I just totally hit a wall in my process and I think it was because I didn& #39;t really have the time I needed to hold the whole thing in my mind (I need an entire day) and be able to consider the beginning, middle, and end simultaneously
It& #39;s interesting that there are so many replies with some variation on getting sick of the piece, hitting the deadline--this is why I never pitch. My 1st book was a case of getting sick of looking at it and I truly learned my lesson (I& #39;m not happy with the book as it exists)
Which is not to say that it& #39;s a bad strategy for other writers, but for me, deadlines don& #39;t do much to help me produce generally, and I think it& #39;s too hard to tell from inside the process whether being sick of the essay means I& #39;m being a perfectionist or avoiding something
all that& #39;s to say, my seven thousand word essay is absolutely not done
