The most powerful types of revision, for me, as a writer and as a teacher of writing, is
when you see the writing in a different way, especially when maybe you're grappling with
"what am I trying to actually get at here, what am I actually trying to say." It's the
pieces that sort of give you this "aha" moment as a writer and you see things differently
and you have a place to go with it. And sometimes those are glorious moments and sometimes you've
written 20 pages and you realize you have to get ride of it all. But being okay with
that is a really important piece. And that's a piece that I would say students struggle
with a lot because I'll tell them that I've done that and they sort of freak out and say
"you wrote 20 pages and you scrapped it all?!" and I'll say "well, it didn't say anything,"
so I actually have to think about what it is I'm trying to get at and so that's the big picture.