Writing is Re-Writing: Part 1

“What did you do today?” asked my husband last night as we were fixing dinner.

And I had to admit that I’d spent most of the day writing and rewriting a bio for the Women’s Conference.

“How many pages is it?” he asked.

“I’m trying to keep it around 100 words,” I answered.

For a non-writer like my husband, it is hard to imagine spending all day writing so few words. But poets do it all the time, spending hours crafting a few lines, a hundred words or so, on a regular basis. A good haiku may only have 17 syllables, but to convey so much meaning in so few words takes a lot of work!

How can it be that the better you become at writing the longer it takes you to write?

What happens is this: as you become more skilled with writing, you know about more choices you have, you understand how sentences can be shaped, how the sounds of words in which order will have the desired impact. If something is important enough, it is worth taking the time necessary to revise and rewrite, to get readers to respond.

In the case of my Women’s Conference bio, the writing was fine–it just wasn’t an accurate depiction of what happened in my life which led to my selection. Here’s what they sent to me to approve:

Laid off from her college teaching job, Gwendolyn Alley needed to change her career. A scholarship from The Women’s Conference allowed the mid-40s mother to afford and complete a $2,500 Women’s Economic Ventures 14-week Self-Employment Training course in May 2010. At graduation, she was elected the class speaker. Using the plan she created, Alley successfully expanded her own writing coach business, The Write Alley, while dealing with the sudden death of her mother and major spinal surgery for her husband.

So what did I do? I couldn’t approve it, so I started rewriting it. I actually wrote almost three pages of notes and narrative to figure out what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. Then I edited it down and down and down until I had these 140 solid words:

Laid off from her full time college teaching and administrative positions, Gwendolyn Alley needed to change her career from part time teaching to one which offered a reliable way to support her family—especially when the economy threatened her husband’s job of 25 years. With a scholarship from The Women’s Conference, the mid-40s mother signed up for a $2,500 Women’s Economic Ventures 14-week Self-Employment Training course. That same day, her husband broke his C2 vertebrae, the “Hangman’s Break:” 95% die instantly; of those who survive, 97% are paralyzed. Gwendolyn attended class and wrote a business plan for The Write Alley Coaching and Writing Strategies while nursing her husband to a full recovery. In May 2010 she graduated with honors and served as class speaker. She is now building her business even though she recently lost her most important coach: her mother.

I knew I had to make it shorter so I sent it by email to five friends, carefully setting an agenda for them.

Please continue to the rest of this post! Learn about setting a reader’s agenda and read the final bio!