How long do you edit?

[Red_Wire]

How long do you edit poems before posting them on the site? or before you're happy with them if those are two different timings?

Personally I think I used to just shrug things off and leave them. Lately I've been putting everything on my desktop, rereading them every few hours. In a day I might change a few words, add in a comma, remove that same comma... It's fairly ridiculous. I want to be able t reread a poem I've written in 20 years and be able to know why I chose every syllable. It's fascinating to me.

But yeah, I was wondering what everyone else does. So enough about me

[smorzando]

It depends, I'm never entirely happy with anything I write. I just HAVE to go back and edit and re edit, and completely obliviate and reweite it again... and then other times I don't touch it for months. Its the same with submitting poems. Some are freshly written, and others are years old that have been edited a bajillion times before they come on here.

smorz.

[chime]

i just write what i need to, i only change or add words if it feels wrong to me, i write everything in a book first (called puck) and then when i type it up i correct the grammar. but most of the time when its done it done, i try to stay away from over editing because im not in the same frame of mind that i was when i wrote it, so it'l never be right if you get what i mean.

[Red_Wire]

Yeah, I get those sometimes.
Sometimes editing creates a certain sense of stagnancy that's terrible

[madkill]

depends really. Sometimes if I think I could do more just not at the current time then I will edit it later in the day etc.

[Yog]

Nothing is set. I edit until I feel it is right. Even then sometimes I go back and make edits later. I've written poems that I thought were pretty much right the first time, and I've written poems that I've edited for over a year before I was happy ... then edited them again.

[Nobody]

I rarely ever edit...sadly...I usually trash an old poem, for a few lines I like and write a new one from what I have left of the old one.

[Silver Wind]

I rarely edit, only if I write a poem, and like the concept of it, but feel something is off about it. But more oft than not I keep it true to form, how it first comes out, might just change the structure a bit, or a word here or there, but I usually will not rewrite them.

Much the same as Nobody it I decide I am not happy with how a poem comes out, I usually will just trash the whole poem instead of trying adapt it.

When I am writing in some form other than free verse, than I might have to do a little more working with it, to get it to make sense, sound good and fit into the rules of the structure. So I will do some rewriting and reraanging and might have two or three versisons before the complete one, but I will not post it untill it is how I want it. I might work with a poem for about an hour or so, but I will not come back to them later and re-edit them. I complete them in one sitting.

[Flutterings]

I just write and post. If its not perfect I rewrite ideas into the next poem, sometimes months and months later I'll look at something and think, it might work better if I changed that word. Or I go to edit the punctuation, but thats it. x

[Ernie]

Whats EDIT ?

Is it a local slang ? something like
" I edit Mc D's last night " lol.

[Ernie]

No really, I very rarely edit other than to move lines or stanzas.

Might change the odd word now and then,but more often than not,what you see is what I wrote.

I sometimes write maybe 50 single lines, cut them up, then arrange them the way I like.(I use card as paper curls up) Used lines are rewritten or discarded.

ernie

[Red_Wire]

Edit(v.) To adapt, review, revise, rewrite, emend, modify, alter or proofread :P

[Gypsybutterfly]

Editing is a process that is something I feel is needed and do it as an extension of that feeling. I write purely on instinct; a thought pops into my head and is usually one line if not the beginning line of a poem and I write that poem from beginning to end without stopping or taking time to think what I am writing about. I read it again; usually to see what on earth I have written about so usually a poem I write is as much a discovery for me as it is everyone else. Editing; usually takes place much in the same way. If I dont feel happy about something or enchanted by it; I change parts of it. Usually that is punctuation as I dont normally bother with it when I first write it; but I quite cherish the first words I write as I feel they came from something that I feel must be preserved; however if those first words dont convey that idea correctly then I will change them here and there much like a cook dashes in a bit more salt and pepper!