Writing is Rewriting

Louie and I came along to the lab with Bryan tonight. Since neither of us knows how to use a pipette or run out a gel (him with no opposable thumbs and me with my arts degrees), Louie got comfortable on a towel at my feet and I read a friend's story. We met at the Tomales Bay workshops last fall, and he sent me a rewrite of the story he'd submitted in our workshop. In this second draft, by seeing what things stuck and what were nixed, I realized what parts of the story are important to him. And it really helped inform my comments the second time around. I may have before been preoccupied with a tertiary character, but this time I see why that character was there, and who's more important. I don't often read multiple drafts of another writer's work, and I don't often submit my own to fellow writers, either. I think doing so could be more helpful than I'd previously thought.

Louie wanted to comment on the story, too. But, alas, no opposable thumbs.