When asked if it was hard being a writer Oscar Wilde reportedly described the scrivener's plight as such: yesterday I spent the entire day inserting a comma; today I spent the entire day taking it out again. Crafting, chin rubbing, never being satisfied or quite sure. Call it what you will. The need to change things is as strong as the need to write something in the first place, and just as inexplicable. Don't confuse this with the need to change things for the sake of changing them. There are plenty of people who feel compelled to change words just because they can. Usually into something trite or over-grand in the hope that it will make them seem something they are not. If you really have something useful to offer, fill the blank page yourself and change away. Craft it. Rewrite it in half as many words. Then rewrite it using half as many words again.
The Quicktime movie above is an extract of the late Jack MacGowran reading from Samuel Beckett's 'Watt'. You'll either get it or you won't. Not many did when Beckett was trying to get published. I guess some things never change.
You can buy a CD of MacGowran reading Beckett here.
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