For years now, I’ve been a huge fan of singer/songwriter Josh Ritter. If you haven’t listened to him before, two quick things:
- What’s wrong with you?
- Look him up. Start with this clip and go from there:
Josh Ritter, \”To the Dogs or Whoever\”
What I’ve always liked and admired about Josh is the exact same thing I like and admire about artists like Bob Dylan (one of Josh Ritter’s self-admitted musical inspirations), Ani DiFranco, John Prine, and others like them. Their music is poetry, and their poetry is story. When they perform, their songs are so much more than catchy tunes; they’re full of characters and scenes and lessons that stay with you long after the last note has faded. Josh actually takes that a step further, in that he is one of those very rare performers who always seems to exude pure, joyful energy when he’s onstage. If you’re in the audience, you can’t help but have it rub off on you. I’ve seen him play five times now, all over Virginia and Maryland, and every single one of his shows has been remarkable.
You can imagine how excited I was, then, to hear Josh announce his first novel. It’s called Bright’s Passage, and I’m almost finished with it. My point here is not to review his book, other than to say that it’s an amazing first effort and I’m enjoying every one of its 200 pages. Throughout the book, he manages to take the clarity and imagery that conveys so beautifully in his music and, somehow, apply those same techniques to prose. I’d probably be jealous if I wasn’t such a fan.
My point here is to mention that, a few days ago, Josh published an article in The Wall Street Journal on his own editing process. Entitled “Seeing Red: To Write is to Edit,” it’s an inspiring short piece on how his father’s red pen inspired him to become the disciplined writer he is today. He writes:
Doing good work and having creative thoughts means very little unless you’re able to express that work and those thoughts to others in as straightforward a way as possible. To edit yourself isn’t an admission of lack of talent; it’s sticking up for that talent by taking the time to make sure that everyone can understand what you’re trying to say.
Perhaps the most aggravating part of the process to me was that my dad never wrote anything for me. “You know how it should be—you write it,” I can imagine myself saying then. But instead, he was doing what all great editors do; he was posing questions for me to answer, giving me problems to solve.
I absolutely love that line of his: having creative thoughts means very little unless you’re able to express that work. It’s so completely true, though I’m fairly certain that a great deal of writers out there — professional and amateur alike — wish very much that it was not. I also love the definition of “editing” as “sticking up for that talent.” It’s such an inspiring way of looking at the editing process, which so many writers — and I do include myself in this number — often view as an interminable slog. Creation, after all is fun. It’s a rush, it’s exciting, you feel like you’re spinning worlds and setting constellations in the heavens. Making everything fit together like it should, though, answering the questions that need to be answered and solving the problems that need to be solved … that’s hard. Doing that, in the end, is what separates writers from people who write.
Check out Josh’s article here. And if you’re interested, check out Bright’s Passage on Amazon here. You won’t be sorry for doing either one.
