Collected Works

Michael Ondaatje wrote the drafts for The Collected Works of Billy The Kid, and slid them into a drawer.

After two years, he pulled them out and went through them all, rewriting. He wrote them backwards to see if they worked better. Some did and he left them like that. One works forward and backwards – brilliantly weaving images both ways.

Writing is a process that uncovers what you’re saying. There are times to do it quickly but there must also be moments of revision, reflection, rewriting. And this is slow, sometimes painfully slow.

But that process is worth doing. It uncovers more layers of the beauty around your story, your concept, your idea.

I worked with a client who thought she was writing one kind of book, but when we identified the core at her story it became focused on something else. It was more focused. Truer to what she wanted to say.

Through my own fiction writing the drafting process has found different reflections of ideas, new perspectives, different ways of writing it. Variations worth weaving into different chapters. Images and motifs that link the ideas and characters.

It might be slow but this process is incredibly rewarding, and essential.