Summer Drive

I'm surprised they held my spot here. I don't deserve it, that's for sure. I seem to get more drive in the summer, for some reason. Goes against nature, I know, but I just seem to get more pages written in the summer.

Came across this on the web today:

"Q: How important is the process of rewriting?
Robert McKee: It's absolutely critical. I quote Hemingway in my book who said, "The first draft of anything is shit." What's difficult for writers to come to terms with is to recognize that 90% of what we all do, no matter our talent, is not our best work. We are only capable of excellence maybe 10% of the time."

I know that some people roll their eyes at Robert McKee, but I think he's right about most things. Certainly this.

How can this not be debilitating? I confess I use this as an excuse in being unproductive. It's hard to start a new draft of something when you know that you've got at least 2 rewrites before it's fit to look at. It's a miracle that any of us bother. But we do, because we must. As playwrights, the thoughts of people sitting in the dark watching our stories for up to two hours outweigh the toil of countless hours of writing, rewriting, applying feedback, preparing readings, submitting and, let's face it, the internet detours we take when we're stuck. Which for me, is a lot.

Well. Back to mining for that 10%.