Layered words

Now that wintry weather is here, I watch the snow piling up around our yard gnome and what were once puddles on a sandy road now creaking with ice. Last winter, so much snow fell it started forming striations of different storms, layering winter.


Writing revisions form in the same way, with a fresh draft of snow to make footprints in (or maybe even a snow angel) followed by time and waiting for what the weather brings next. I may play with the words (whether there's a thaw or not), I may let them be for awhile. Returning to the piece of prompts me to add another layer, like a second snowfall, giving depth to what's already in place.


This revision doesn't mean the original layer has gone away -- far from it. Even if the revision is substantive, what remains of that first draft, or layer, is a starting point, the first iteration of ideas and invention. Time helps the piece form, whether over the course of a long winter, a short winter, or something in-between. Some revisions take more quickly whether by necessity, such as a fast approaching deadline; other versions take time to break through the ice and learn what this piece of writing is, at the end of a short winter's day, about.


Past the sunshine and distractions of summer, there's an introspection offered in these gray hours of ice and snow offer, meanings half-frozen and just waiting to be discovered.