It was easy to feel good about the prospect of revision before actually starting the work. Now, a few days into that labor, revision feels like a drag. As I read and re-read reviewer comments and go back to the article, I get grumpy: "I explained that on page fifteen!" "But that's not what I'm writing about, you want me to write a different article."
Then I wonder, how many of my students feel this frustration when I mark up first drafts? How often do they feel like I'm too heavy-handed in my feedback? How often are they right?
This is not to say that the reviewer comments are anything less than helpful. This is just an admission that those comments make me grumpy.
And the work of revision doesn't always gratify the way that composing does. "Today I wrote three pretty good pages." That gives you a sense of satisfaction. "Today I re-read that section of Burke, then re-wrote those two paragraphs where I was talking about catharsis and tried to explain what class has to do with the critique of Aristotle's Poetics but I'm still not sure if I've addressed what the reviewer critiqued in those paragraphs." That doesn't feel quite so satisfying.
2 comments:
"This is just an admission that those comments make me grumpy." Yesss! Reviews are almost always very helpful. Even when they're wrong; that's when I know I have to revise to make it clear even to a nincompoop what it is that I'm saying. But no matter how supportive the review is, unless it's absolutely fawning over my draft, I'm irritated by it. (And that "absolutely fawning" is entirely hypothetical, though I do live for the day when that might happen ;)
Senioritis: Yeah, the fawning thing's a hypothetical for me too! I probably should get over the thin-skinned reaction so that it doesn't become resistance. After all, the feedback IS helpful, as you say.
Tony: I don't know if I'd go so far as to say "evil." After all, revision DOES allow for discovery. But something close to evil? Yeah, maybe.
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