Realizing you still have work to do

Revising is painful not only because it means you have to make changes, but also because it means more work. Ew.

Realizing how difficult the process really is

Have you ever written a draft and thought "this is the best thing that has ever been written"?

Try walking away from it and returning to edit it a few days later. Talk about a fat slice of humble pie.

Re-reading your work for the first time

If you really want to make yourself feel bad about your writing, return to a piece you have written months ago. You will, without a doubt, find that you are nowhere near as skilled as you thought you were at the time. Sure, it's a good thing that you are improving with time, but that doesn't make it any less painful to return to old work.

Pro tip for the real sadists: wait years between writing and editing. You will question everything you ever knew about your life.

Realizing you have more revising to do than you thought

Just like any other major, English majors (or any other major that requires a heavy writing load throughout the whole course) is bound overwhelm you when finals roll around. Sure, you have a lot more time to prepare for your finals because most classes require you to bring in proof that you have developed your skill set over the course of the semester, but that doesn't mean the process is any less stressful.

Yes, while all of the other majors are out there poring over notebooks, flashcards, and PowerPoints, we are in another room crying over our laptops because we have realized that we have six full-length papers to revise on top of three portfolios for various writing courses. We get it.

Criticizing your own writing

If you ever believe that a writer is self-absorbed, try to watch them in their revising process. If they truly care about their work, they will likely make at least one comment aloud that makes their frustration known. This can range from a simple snort and a "what was I thinking" to slamming the laptop closed, throwing it across the room, and claiming "i'm giving up, I will just be a stripper".

No matter where you fall on that spectrum, if you have ever felt any of these things while reading back over your old writing, you are far from self-absorbed.

Getting frustrated wit that ONE sentence

Every paper has one sentence that makes them say "I want to throw this entire paper into a dumpster and light it on fire".

No matter how great the rest of the paper is developing, you cannot get that one sentence to work for you. Maybe it's a single word, maybe it's the syntax, and maybe you just can't figure out another way to say what you are thinking. If you have never struggled with that one sentence, you are the next great novelist... or you are lying.

Getting frustrated with your thesis

Sometimes that one sentence is your thesis. Those are the times that truly test your skills...and your patience.

We have all been taught, since at least middle school, that your thesis is the most important part of your paper because it sets up what you will be talking about in the body paragraphs. Sure, you may know what you are going to say in the paper, but you want to make sure your audience understands exactly what to expect. How's that for putting a lot of pressure on one sentence?

Just getting frustrated, period

I mean it when I say that you are lying if you have never threatened to throw, break, or dismember something (or someone) while revising a piece of writing. Bonus points for threatening to set something on fire, because that shows true frustration.

Hang in there, that frustration may breed great creativity and you may just end up with a wonderful piece.

When your laptop decides to delete all of your revisions

There is nothing, and I do mean nothing, worse than re-writing an entire paper to fit your new viewpoint and opinions only to find that your laptop has decided to crash. All of that hard work and frustration goes to waste and it's back to the drawing board. Just, please, don't break anything. Sure, it let you down, but that laptop was probably expensive.

Reaching a point in your paper that makes no sense

If you're like me, there is at least one paragraph in every paper that you write that makes you think "what is that even supposed to mean" when you come across it in revision. If you can't decode it in at least three attempts, just trash it all together. Odds are you were just trying to meet a word limit for a rough draft and, now that you've had more time to think, there are bound to be better-developed ideas in your brain.

Realizing you contradict yourself more than once

As writers, we often get so "in the zone" that we can sit behind our screens for hours on end. This is great, but these moments do have to end eventually and, more often than not, they end before the first full draft is completed. This not only results in a piecemeal rough draft, but one that is likely to have at least minor contradictions as you try to remember exactly what you have said in previous writing sessions.

Outlines can help, but there's no way to fully control the artist inside and its ever-changing vantage point on characters and arguments.

Realizing you're on hour three of revision

Seriously, we can write for hours, but at least that passes by quickly. With revising, I always feel like time drags on and on the longer I have to spend with this terrible lump of a paper I have created because I simply can't seem to form anything noteworthy out of that lump.

Looking back at the process once you've finished

Even when I do get into "the zone" with my revisions, it's hard to feel as if I have made much progress. When you are writing a rough draft, it is easy to see how much work you have done, simply because nothing existed on the page before you sat down to work on it.

With revision, you are working with pre-existing material, making it really hard to see where the old stops and the new begins. Never fear! Some work is better than none.

When you realize "none of this works"

Seriously, there's no way around feeling like you have failed at everything you have ever loved while you are revising. You will ultimately reach at least one point in the revision process that makes you hang your head and cry.

Do not give up! There's a reason you sit down to write a first draft, just like there is a reason you revise. Writing is a process, not a magic trick: it takes time and effort more than it takes pure skill and luck.