From what I said, it might seem like I pile up all this mental whatever and then BOOM, out pops a poem! It’s really not like that at all. I was simply speaking of the composition process, not the full process. So, yes, I go through the arc of associations, memories, thoughts, until I get to something that feels summative. That’s draft one. Then, for the rest of the existence of the poem, until it’s published or discarded, I read through it, and when I come to something that doesn’t feel right, I imagine where it could go instead. I think that’s what most people do? I do massive revisions to what I write over time. Two writers I’ve collaborated with, G.C. Waldrep and Kristina Marie Darling, both of them are much more assured with what they make than I am. Or at least, that’s how it feels to me. When we’d revise together, their revisions were much more of a honing, while mine would be dumping three quarters of the poem and putting a whole new thing in there. I hope I didn’t frustrate them too much. I know I did at least a little.

Well, I can’t really work any miracles in revision , like some people can. I don’t always advocate this to students, but I don’t really have a problem just putting something aside. I don’t actually throw it away, because I have the file, but just saying, “You know what, this is not savable. It’s just not interesting to me.” I’m not someone who can systematically chip away at something that’s dead and make it better. I’ll sometimes break things down into parts and think, “Well, this was a 25-page story and it’s just really bad, but there’s a page and a half here that I could sort of use in something one day.” Revision for me is really only something I can get excited about if I can make something better.

What I usually do is write a draft or two and I won’t think too much about the length. Usually my scripts don’t go over 110, 120 pages. I’m pretty good at that. Then I know I’ve got a record of that and whatever jokes are in there. Eventually I’ll read it once or twice, usually once, and then delete it off my computer. Put it somewhere, a drive somewhere, and get it off my computer. And then I rewrite it again from memory. Based on what I remembered from reading it.

I did a round of edits on my own, a round of edits with my agents before we sent it out, and then there’s obviously the round of edits with my editor. Each time I was focused on structural things first. I think the structural stuff was almost more straightforward because it would literally be something like, “There’s not a lot of background on this character.” And so then I’d go in and see, “Oh, maybe it’s just this one chapter that needs to be looked at over the course of two months.” And then I would make a to-do list of other things. And then at the end of fixing all these almost different parts of the car, we’d go in and do this total body scan. We’d read through the whole thing and have another little to-do checklist. So, it’s sort of constantly looking at the list, reading a few pages, looking at the list, and trying to do a more comprehensive edit that way.