Our Mission Statement:

The mission of Pens & Pages Writers Guild is to facilitate and encourage writers of all genres, to share resources and tips about the writing process and, most of all, to provide a positive and productive forum that will encourage and support each writer in his or her creative endeavors.
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Sunday, July 12, 2009

Rewriting, Revision and Recycling

To achieve revision and rewrite for the wonderful little piece you've just written, you'll need to print it off, read it, then set it aside for a few days, then pick up your pages and read them again.  You don't just compose your tome, run it through spell check and email it off to a contest or a publisher.  It must first be printed off.  It reads quite differently on paper than it did on the screen.  You'll make corrections and revisions, then print it off again.  At some point you'll decide it might be ready for critique by your fellow scribes in P&P, so you run off about eight more copies.  My, My!  Are we using a lot of paper here?

Have no qualms about clicking that print button, Ladies.  The paper mill companies have been heavily into reforestation for many years.  Personally, I was recycling paper products long before recycling ever became popular.  There is a stack of used paper beside my printer.  It will be flipped over and the backside will be used for printing again.  (Note: put a big X on the pre-used side.)

My people had struggled through the Great Depression of the early 1930s before I came along.  They reused everything, fixed what was broken, and never threw anything out.  When clothing became unwearable, buttons were clipped off and saved in a jar.  The fabric became part of a quilt or a braided rug.  Shoes were re-soled, tires were patched, and new cars were bought only every ten or twelve years.  There was an electric appliance repair shop in every town in America.

We only became a "throw away" society when manufacturers built planned obsolescence into our appliances so we would have to purchase new ones as soon as the warranties ran out.  You need take no blame upon yourself for those landfills choked with rusting refrigerators, TVs, ovens, washer and dryers, etc.

Neither do you need to blame yourself for the superstition of so-called global warming.  This is being used as a political tool to control nations and their peoples.  Read "Meltdown" by Patrick J. Michaels.  After that, if you still believe in global warming, just be comforted to know that your old pal Grannie Carol has spent seven decades building up enough carbon emission credits for all of you in our little writer's group to be guilt free for the rest of your lives.
 
So write and click that printer button.  Write, print!  Rewrite, reprint!