[gmw]

I was browsing my journal today, looking for something, and came across two related paragraphs that I thought might spark some discussion here. I will post them as they were originally written (7 years ago):

5-Sept: Another unexpected thing about writing was how powerful is the written word. While ideas were still just in my head they would swirl around and change and adapt, but once they appeared on the screen in front of me they took on a strange sort of permanence. Once the words were written they were reluctant to change in any but the most superficial manner. I've discovered the hard way that this is not always a good thing, an author does need to be able to say goodbye to those parts that don't work, but what I discovered was that saying goodbye to an already written word was much much harder than saying goodbye to an idea in my mind.

23-Oct: The other side of the argument about the permanence of the written word is that their permanence is quite possibly what makes writing work. If you didn't feel that attachment then none of your work would take on the presence, substance, permanence, required to form a basis for more writing. It's like not being able to put up walls or a ceiling of a house until the foundations are down. The trick is to be able to distinguish between those words that are like paint or wall-hangings and those that are foundations and walls and those that support the roof – the load-bearing parts of the book, and the distinction is not always obvious. A great many words form part of the feeling of the book, you cannot necessarily just change a few of them without making that part feel somehow different and separate to the rest.