Chapter 11

Chapter 11 focused on the process or revision across the different mediums of writing, photography, and video. The biggest thing that I took away from the chapter, and also something that I hadn't really considered before, is how caught up I can get in the minutia of whatever essay or story I am working on, instead of following the pyramid approach presented in the chapter. I usually find myself jumping ahead to editing or proofreading before approaching the work as a whole and beginning with the revision step, often even before the work is technically finished.  I also tend to do all of these things simultaneously, jumping back and forth, which sometimes has a snowball effect where one little change somewhere can lead to massive changes further on. I think that the way the author presents this process would work better, to be methodical about how you are looking for and applying changes to whatever you are working on.

I also found the section dealing with proofreading to ring particularly true, specifically the part about how it can work better to get someone else to look through whatever you have written. It can be difficult to separate yourself from something that you have probably spent a significant amount of time with over the course of the creative process. It is also easy to become precious about something that you have created as you likely still have the ideal form of the idea that you initially conceived and will have a difficult time separating that from what it is that you have actually created. Having another pair of eyes that are detached from the work can give you great insight.