North Maple Rag

Earlier this week, I turned in the first draft of my final Lawyering writing project. Today, I had a critique session with my professor and a classmate. Discussing my brief was so much fun! Really, it was. I love editing and I love smart discussions, so these critique sessions are kind of a hoot.

As I walked back to my apartment after the meeting, I thought about depth of my affection for editing and I was reminded of my college pottery class. Early in the semester, my professor told my class that he liked to leave his handprint on his pots so that he could remember the process he used to create them. When he’d reach the final step of glazing, he’d hold the pot in such a way that after it was fired, you could still see exactly where his fingers had gripped when he dunked the pot in the glaze. A lot of us chose to copy him and now, every time I go home and see my favorite bowl from that class sitting in my parent’s living room, I pick it up and place my fingers into the prints around its base. My professor was right, holding it like that helps me remember the choices I made in how to shape and color it.

I think I like editing for a similar reason. I'm usually hesitant to throw away drafts of things I’ve written that are marked up with edits. I generally prefer to edit by hand and I usually cover the paper with circles and arrows and new or changed sentences. Looking at those drafts is so much more satisfying that looking at the final product because the drafts show my process of working out just the right way to convey exactly what I meant to say. I’m a girl who’s often terrified of being misunderstood, so I love having tangible proof of that process.

This blog is one of the few things I write that I don't extensively edit, which is probably painfully obvious at times. That's fun, but I think editing is still my favorite thing about writing.

Well, that's enough geekiness for one day. Hans Brix just emailed me to suggest that we become "SuperLawyers" meaning lawyer superheroes. I think that's a nice idea. So now I'm imagining myself, caped, and flying through the air with one arm outstretched and the other grasping a briefcase. I'm also making up SuperLawyer names for my friends at various law schools, so they can join our SuperLawyer team. Huh, just can't turn off the geekiness, I guess.