Revision Anxieties and Joe Hill on Writing

Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

Over the past year, I’ve been reading a lot of Joe Hill. As much as I can, actually. At present, I am gleefully lost in Keyhouse, wandering through its gothic corridors, and getting to know its inhabitants more with every masterfully illustrated page. I have not seen the Netflix adaptation, yet, and if it’s anything like In the Tall Grass I’m sure it will be true to the source material and terrifyingly brilliant. Without question, Joe Hill is a modern master of strange.

Joe Hill is the kind of writer who makes you say to yourself, “Why haven’t I read any of this sooner? What took me so long?” Since discovering his writing for myself, I seem to find his name everywhere. Or I’m just noticing it, now. In all of Hill’s stories (that I’ve read so far), the characters seem to exist in real-time and with very real and complex personas, and so each story seems somehow familiar because of that single fact. Joe Hill writes instant classics and it’s almost annoying but only because I’m currently trying to become a real published writer, myself, and Joe Hill makes one wonder, "What else is there?" Even if I was published, though, his talent and imagination would likely remain bothersome, and I'd still be a fan.

Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

What I appreciate most about Joe Hill’s books, however, and even perhaps more than the stories themselves, are any of his author’s notes. He has a way of writing a book preface to the reader as if they were an emerging writer. Joe Hill’s reflections on writing are immensely encouraging, candid, and refreshingly honest about what it means to want to tell strange stories for a living. It’s wonderful to read his thoughts on persistence, creativity, and love for all forms of storytelling. Especially the rejections, the frustrations, and the rewards. These messages from Joe Hill’s experiences, along with his advice about writing and reading, have been an invaluable source for me as I’m working through edits and rewrites for two different novels simultaneously (the second and shorter of which was a surprising, happy accident following the first). For me, reading Joe Hill talking about writing recharges everything I feel for the entire process— all the parts I love, and especially the parts for which I feel otherwise. Deeply otherwise.

Historically, editing and rewriting have been my least favored aspects of writing. For anything short, fine. I’ll take it. Not a problem. With long-form fiction, however, this has induced in me only feelings of bureaucracy. That is until I came across Joe Hill and his unique talent for self-reflective preface writing about writing. At this point, I’m willing to believe that editing is an opportunity for a real love of storytelling to shine through. It’s the fine-tuning pitchfork work.

Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

For example, my dystopian thriller (which I’m currently editing) has 40 chapters. I’m assuming, based on feedback from my writer’s groupmates, that each chapter contains about 10-20 minor-to-major edits or sectional rewrites. Averaged at fifteen edits/rewrites per chapter and multiplied by forty chapters, suddenly I’m faced with the reality that there will be 600 minor-to-major edits and rewrites for this project (which may never even get off the ground). Fortunately, my horror novella has only six chapters, and I’ll leave the rest of that math alone for the time being. 

I've happily constructed checklists for past projects, but when a “to-do” dossier is hundreds of items long, I guess part of my Joyful Brain can’t seem to fight back against so much red ink and seizes up. I'm thinking it might be flashbacks of finishing two books previously and not really selling those. I'm worried these third and fourth projects of mine might, in the end, go nowhere beyond my mind.

Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

I’ve decided to tackle this whole aspect of the writing process different this time around, and I’m sure that I have Joe Hill to thank for this sea change. Learning to pre-write as much as possible, for instance, had already improved things overall so much for me as a writer, I think I’m just finally ready to embrace the post-writing aspects and learn to love again. Reading Joe Hill discussing how nothing about writing is easy has helped me to let go of my emotions around the entire editing process. After all, it’s about respecting each sentence and helping them shine.

I plan to go back through my writer’s group notes and prep edits/rewrites for each chapter ahead of time. This is not only going to separate me from the initial writing process (we both need some space from each other), but it will also lay out everything for me at once. It will provide me with better overall confidence to go back in and tighten or replace all the bolts and hammer out dinks in the frame. Already, having mapped edits for only three of the forty chapters, I see large patterns that need to be fixed overall in every section.

For the most part, it seems to be a lot of direct description that could/should be swapped for direct dialogue and character building through increased interactions. This will help me, the narrators, and any readers build empathy for all of my characters rather than the select few who already shine. Essentially, the delivery of the narrative, the particular frame I’m using— which is a kind of oral history interview transcription— is too heavy and direct. It would benefit all involved to break certain moments into direct interaction through dialogue which reveals more about each of the characters. AI told me I had only 6% of the text written as dialogue (though this is misleading since ALL of it is technically dialogue), so it's evident the story would become livelier with more character interactions.

Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

Despite my initial negative emotions about editing, this analysis makes sense to me (if it’s, perhaps, a bit too heady for folks who are not creative writers at heart). I had energy and used momentum while writing and at times I blew through sections because I wanted to get the overall bones laid out. I even told myself, “It’s cool, you can edit and rewrite parts of this later so long as it’s mostly set to go…” The turn of the plot, here, is that I later looked at all of those 600+/- potential edits then gulped and murmured “Have mercy, it’s too much...”

I know it’s not insurmountable, now. I know it never has been. That it's always been about my own mind and fears. I’ve made my peace with my post-writing blues. It’s about breathing through the feelings of being challenged and searching for the simplicity in editing. Everything is always about breathing through the feelings and finding joy.

Ironically, I used to teach “The Writing Process” to reticent middle school writers, and I made sure to deliver a plethora of post-writing strategies. “Map out your edits,” I’d instructed my students. “You need visual notes so put things in boxes, use arrows and stars. It helps your brain remember. Look for patterns. Plan it out, then knock it out one piece at a time. Stay steady. Read it aloud…” I forgot to tell them to walk away from what they’d written for a week or two, but I’m afraid public school pacing calendars wouldn’t allow for such nonsense. Imagine teaching something in-depth and being given the time and space to do so! The nerve.

Grit and perseverance are very strange words to a writer. They’re obvious necessities and are simultaneously critical yet elusive, slippery. Sometimes, neither can be found at all— momentarily reduced to infinitesimal granules by doubt and exhaustion. If writing 140,000 words seems like a feat, it’s peanuts next to editing that same number. Daunting though it be, I must admit that I’m starting to feel thrilled about post-writing, rewriting, and even simple editing. Anything that I can do to get out of the way and help the story tell itself, I’m all in. This is a new feeling, and I’m excited to have a long, engaged conversation with my book(s) to see if we can’t help them grow and find their audience.

Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

Joe Hill has said that “Terror is the desire to save your own ass, but horror is rooted in sympathy.” My past, familiar emotions around editing and rewriting can be found in the struggle between these words: terror, desire, horror, and sympathy. As a writer staring down an intimidating quantity of Phase Two edits, I see how joy can still be had in parsing these four words and reclaiming such daunting work as part of the bounty in sharing a big story. The work continues, always, and that’s the joy to be had. It’s sympathy made real for the characters I created and love, and it’s the only way the story will ever really live for anyone else. Will ever make friends and play with others.

If only there were some kind of key that allowed me access to the little bits inside my head such that I could rearrange all the pieces I find therein, or even remove some of those pesky anxieties completely… Oh well, until then… It’s still about grit, persistence, love, joy, and sympathy. Love of storytelling is a strange affliction, indeed. Thanks, Joe Hill, for the encouragement and the guiding lights.