Holding Readers' Interest

[desiresjab]

Run tests to make sure that what you write actually holds your own attention. Be certain of it, don't suppose so because it feels darned good to be finished. Nightmare. They are yawning already.

Here is a contradiction. When your stuff is good enough, it can stand a lot of revision. Huh? If it is good enough, why does it need to stand a lot of revision? The way to prove your stuff holds your own attention is to show by revising it long enough on the road toward perfection that the merely good was worth making perfect. Prove this contention. Leave no doubt.

But if your stuff (or mine) does not even hold your own (my own) attention, you (or I) will drop it before it is made perfect, suggesting that the merely good was not really worth making perfect.

* * * * *

One of my strongest artistic beliefs and values is that much revision is usually required for the best art and spontaneity is vastly overrated. I do not believe poems can be revised into the grave, personally. At least that is very hard to do. Generally, I believe poems have to be partially excavated out of the graves of spontaneity where we last left them.

[JoseBrooks52]

I think the best way to see how good your content is is to leave it sit for a month with ever looking at it then reading it start to finish once you have forgotten much of it because of the passage of time. That allows you to be more neutral and see it as a reader does.