The old adage, “It’s easier to edit than it is to write” comes to mind, but it’s not a true one when I really think on it. Frankly, my editors have always helped me to make my thoughts clearer, my intentions sharper, and the final product of my ramblings much better than they were when handed in. It’s not easy to edit. In fact, I’d say that it is at least as difficult as the initial writing part, and perhaps even more so.
The Rough Drafts We Write for a Life With MS
The same goes for living my life with multiple sclerosis (MS). We had all “written” some form of our intended story — even our intent for the next day — and we’ve had to rewrite, heavily redact, and even throw a draft into the bin due to the disease, which can change everything overnight. It’s with the finesse of good editing that we are able to find the important paragraphs, sentences, and clauses of living and string them together into our best life. How often haven’t we figured out our plotline for the day, when MS has decided that our 10,000 words needed to be cut to 750? But which parts do we cut?
Why ‘Only the Essentials’ Isn’t a Satisfying Life Plan
I’ve often talked about the “must do,” “should do,” and “would like to do” lists I make as I complete my morning inventory. It seems easiest to cut all but the “must dos” when MS symptoms make all but the minimum attainable (and sometimes not even that much). Truth be told, MS can lay my difficult days end-on-end, so doing only the essentials can make a life just an existence, and when the come-and-go symptoms come and stay, that existence hardly exists at all. Just as an editor must leave in some adjectives and adverbs, simile and allegory, and not just cut to verbs and nouns, we must endeavor to cut what we must but leave in the aspects of our days that make the life we’re trying to revise one worth living. Some of us have grown adept at nipping and tucking the activities of our days. Others freeze at the thought of losing even one precious sentence of the stories we had planned to carry out in our days. As a writer who could fill numerous bookshelves with the words, pages, and even full texts that have been edited out of my writings, I have learned to get past the pain of chopping and have embraced the joys of knitting the dangling threads back together.
Good Editing Preserves the Essence of the Original Story
It has become important for me, as a writer, to be happy with the product I submit to the editing process, even though I know that changes will be made to make the work fit for the purpose it was intended. The writing — just like making plans — is but the first step in what our stories and days become in the end. Like a good editor, our goal is to shave all but the essentials without losing the essence. Life with multiple sclerosis is, after all, all about the living part. And just like those clauses and pages that have been written and edited out, they are not discarded. Rather they are there to be revisited, reworked, and, perhaps, replaced into another storyline later in the manuscript of our life with MS. Wishing you and your family the best of health. Cheers, Trevis
