I’m getting closer on the next section of “Ghosts“. The whole thing has taken on a life of it’s own. “Ghosts” started with an initial idea and moment of inspiration, and now it seems like it’s deciding its own course. There is a part of me I have to keep telling to slow down, to go over it again, to hesitate putting it out there.
Because it can be better. With each incremental edit, it does get better. I’ve told myself previously, “This is good enough, I’m sick of it”. Then I come back to read it a month later and I’m embarrassed by the whole thing. So I’ve been combing over the latest “Ghosts” piece again and again, each time finding more to edit. It’s hard to know where to stop.
I have a weird habit of inverting my sentences. It’s one thing I come across over and over. It’s like they’re all backwards. For example, the above: “With each incremental edit, it gets better”. I find this infuriating. “It gets better with each incremental edit”. Why can’t it come out whole the first time instead of this mess? I fear it’s some faulty way my brain works, some deficient mode of reasoning.
And so I go over the words, and I keep highlighting sentences that sound weird, or don’t ring true, and need to be re-written. Then there are whole paragraphs I’m repulsed by and highlight the whole thing for a re-write. Sometimes it feels like there needs to be more, it hasn’t fully fleshed itself out, and suddenly there are six new paragraphs. They’re all long posts. They’re an affront to the limited attention spans of the internet age. By the time I am done with one of these longer posts, when I’ve reached the point that I can’t look at it anymore, I cannot tell whether they’re even worth the effort of reading. Will they even interest anyone, hold someone’s attention? I get lost in the trees…
Incremental edits, incremental growth. That’s what I’m hoping for with all of this.
Author: Jason Jacobs
Jason Jacobs is an artist, project manager, and frontend web designer living and working in Boise, Idaho. Beyond work he spends his time with family, as well as reading, writing articles for Uhmm, and working on his art. All words and opinions, etc., are his and do not reflect the positions or beliefs of anyone other than himself.