Revision on an Old Submission
About three years ago, I wrote an essay on Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Hobbit, which was accepted for an essay collection on that theme to be published by McFarland. Well, the collection has been languishing all this time, although the editor assures me it's making glacial forward progress. Given the time lag, though, I recently asked the editor if she'd mind me tightening up the language a bit and re-submitting-- after all, coming to one's old work with fresh eyes is one of the benefits of a long layoff, right?
Anyway, the editor said sure, so I read the essay for the first time in ages.
And winced.
The argument still strikes me as a strong, ambitious one. . . . but the sentence-level writing is crazy. Strangely enough, I know exactly what I was thinking at the time, but now I can't imagine why I ever thought such thinking was good. Arguably, my only justification was that this submission was also doubling as a dissertation chapter, and -- well, no, not even that sounds like a justification. Perhaps the best I can say is that I wanted to break out of turgid unreadable academic prose. As a result, though, I created a verbose monstrosity whose language sounds like it has a chip on its shoulder. Frankly, I'm very surprised that the editor had accepted it.
Anyway, in the last week of hardcore revision and reworking, I managed to cut 1,500 words (out of 10,800) of fluff in-text. I also cut -- or incorporated into the text -- half of an insane 2,000 words of footnotes. I'm much happier with the prose now, but this just goes to show what a long layoff and additional publication experience can help someone see in terms of revision.
Anyway, the editor said sure, so I read the essay for the first time in ages.
And winced.
The argument still strikes me as a strong, ambitious one. . . . but the sentence-level writing is crazy. Strangely enough, I know exactly what I was thinking at the time, but now I can't imagine why I ever thought such thinking was good. Arguably, my only justification was that this submission was also doubling as a dissertation chapter, and -- well, no, not even that sounds like a justification. Perhaps the best I can say is that I wanted to break out of turgid unreadable academic prose. As a result, though, I created a verbose monstrosity whose language sounds like it has a chip on its shoulder. Frankly, I'm very surprised that the editor had accepted it.
Anyway, in the last week of hardcore revision and reworking, I managed to cut 1,500 words (out of 10,800) of fluff in-text. I also cut -- or incorporated into the text -- half of an insane 2,000 words of footnotes. I'm much happier with the prose now, but this just goes to show what a long layoff and additional publication experience can help someone see in terms of revision.
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