Soon After First Light: Corinna Barsan
Soon After First Light is a series where we talk craft, process, and pandemic with Columbia's accomplished writing professors.
Here, we talk with Adjunct Assistant Professor Corinna Barsan about the revision process, keeping flexible schedules, and holding space for projects in our lives.
Corinna Barsan is an independent book editor with over fifteen years of publishing experience. Most recently, she was a senior editor at Grove Atlantic, where she edited literary fiction, literature in translation, and nonfiction. She also worked at Other Press and Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Writers she has collaborated with include Kathleen Alcott, Olivia Clare, Bryan Denson, Samantha Harvey, Michelle Hoover, Alice LaPlante, Bonnie Nadzam, Sarah Schmidt, Rob Spillman, and Margaret Wrinkle.
What is a typical workday like when you’re in the middle of a project, whether that's teaching, coaching, or editing?
Corinna Barsan: The funny thing is that there is no typical day when you're working freelance and as an independent editor. As in many different fields, your day just shifts based on what you're working on. If I'm working on a longer project, which is diving in and doing a full edit, it can take anywhere from two to three weeks. I often don't like to take on other big projects during that time, because when I'm immersed in a project I'm fully in it. I wouldn't be able to keep two worlds in my mind at once. I might have business or administrative things to take care of. I might have coaching clients who I'll work with during that time. I also do energy work, so I might have energy healing that I'm doing in that space of time, but really the focus, in terms of editing, is on that one project.
It can change though. I might have weeks where I don't have a big project and I'm just working with my coaching clients, or teaching the class that I teach at Columbia, which I've been doing for nine years. So my daily schedule really shifts and changes. Part of what I like about being independent is exactly that, that there is no typical day. You're surprised by what comes up and what you're working on, and it keeps things exciting because it's continually changing.
I've had to grow accustomed to being flexible and not having that typical ‘nine to five’ job. Well, it was never a nine to five (laughs). It was nine to like seven, eight. That's the thing about being an editor at a publishing house. It's pretty much around the clock because when you're in the actual office, you're rarely editing. You're always just focusing on the business of publishing. So you're in meetings, it's a lot of emails, it's a lot of in-house things that help get the book into production and published. All of the editing and reading happens at night or on weekends. So ‘nine to five’ was never realistic, but there still was a structure to the days and weekends. Now, it's a structure that I impose on myself.
Do you have a daily routine?
CB: It's a process of trial and error. I've been working independently for just a little over two years now, and I am still tweaking what works for me. The thing is that it changes all the time. One of my struggles is that it's difficult to turn work off when you're home and it's constantly there in front of you and you don't have that delineating line of okay, work is over, I'm going home. Even if you're still going to be doing work at home, there's this space of time where your mind understands, I'm shifting into another part of my day, but when you're home all the time and you don't have that—sometimes it can help to create a little bit of a buffer and structure, then seeing what comes from there.
Often I'll still work a little bit after dinner and then end my day, but it was a process. At one point I was trying to work in the mornings and have time in the afternoon to catch up on emails and do all of the personal things that come up. It didn't quite work for me in terms of jump-starting my day. It felt like my mind wasn't processing at that pace. So I've kind of switched things around where in the mornings, it's more of a time for me to center and meditate and work out and answer emails and do all of the life things that come up. Then my day will start sometimes at noon. Maybe it'll start a little bit later and sometimes I'll work into the evening. So there's flexibility. I've had to struggle with allowing myself to experiment and to try things that work for me. I keep saying I haven't quite found my ideal routine yet; and honestly, I don't know if I ever will find it. Because I think it does change day to day and week to week. Part of it is having that flexibility to not stick yourself within a certain routine and structure that then you feel pressured to keep. If there's more flow and you are comfortable enough not having that structure, I think that's where you hit this zone where you're more efficient and you can get more done, because you don't feel that pressure of trying to keep within the lines on the road.
That's part of knowing yourself and knowing what works for you. You might be a writer that enjoys working in the evening until like two, three in the morning. You hear plenty of stories of writers who wake up super early in the morning, they get up, they sit down and they write, sometimes they take a break at lunch and they edit in the afternoon—and it's not to say these processes don't work because they absolutely work for some people—but I think there's a tendency to see what other people are doing and then try to take that model on to your life. Where really, maybe it's one little thing that you're seeing in somebody else's model that would work for you. It's about really understanding how you work best.
How would you say that your work as an editor is similar to or different from that of a writer?
CB: I feel that with writers—and this is something we talk a lot about in my revision class—when they’re writing, they’re in that creative headspace. They’re really using that creative part of their minds to experiment. It's, Daydream and imagine and get this story that's in your head down on paper. But there comes a time when you have this story written and revision kicks in, where you then switch to another part of your brain, where it's time to look at what you've done and analyze it and actually see what the story is—what needs to organically come out and be highlighted, what needs to be trimmed away, what isn’t working. That second part of the brain is what editors are using.
They're really looking at the entire story and seeing it for what possibilities it has and what it can become. So there is a big difference in terms of when you're writing and you're creating and you're in that experimental stage of enjoying that creativity and being an artist. The revision side feels completely different; but often they get lumped together. I feel that's where some difficulties happen—when you're in that stage of creativity and suddenly starting to be critical with what you're writing already. That automatically cuts off the creative movement in what you're doing, because then you're starting to think about all of the revision work that should come later, when you should just be allowing yourself to create and be in that space of play and joy.
When I completed my MFA, I was working at FSG, and I pretty much stopped writing. When you're in that role as an editor, it is very difficult to edit other people's work and also write at the same time. It's hard when you're immersed in somebody else's work to still have that creative space for yourself. So a lot of writers in my classes, you know, they'll often entertain the idea of going into publishing and there are some students who are doing both. I always feel like if you have really good willpower and really good boundaries, it can work for you. If you feel like you need more freedom, then it might not be like the best route to take. That comes back down to process and finding the right process for you.
Do you ever think you'll go back to writing at some point? Or do you feel like you kind of found your niche with editing?
CB: I think it's a possibility. I don't know what form that would take, but after a long time I will actually say it's a possibility where before I would have said no. I feel that when there's more space in your life and more of a sense of freedom, you do hold space for other things. So making that move to being independent and having that ability to decide what my days and weeks look like created more space for me mentally and physically. It definitely opened a door.
I love your concept of “space.” Many of us wonder how to make space when there is so much pressure to just pay the bills.
CB: I remember this great advice that one of my former bosses gave me when I was in my twenties and I was thinking, Oh my God, I need to find a career. What am I going to pick? What am I going to do next? Her advice was not to think about it in terms of What's my career going to be? but What job would I like to do and what would feel fulfilling in the moment? Then you take it from there because all of it's just a learning process. It's like a process of elimination and discovery in terms of what makes you happy and what doesn't, and that's kind of how you find direction in what you're doing.
Looking back, it's really hard to take that step outside of the mainstream and to not follow typical career tracks and not have that defined schedule that everybody has, because it seems so unusual and you're going against the grain. There's a sense of feeling other people's judgment based on how you're spending your time. It's really hard to stand in your power and to just be in that space of, This is what feels good to me. This is how I want to spend my limited time on earth. It really takes some empowerment and some good support from whoever's supporting you and cheerleading you on. But it is possible. And I think it's more and more possible these days to find your own specific road.
Do editors experience periods of "creative block"—where they might feel stuck in offering suggestions? If so, how do you move past these moments?
CB: I think at the start of every project, when I'm sitting down to work, my first thought is, Am I going to have anything constructive to say? And I know by now that I always have more than I think I will. But there's always that first inkling of doubt: What if it's perfect as it is? I've never seen anything that doesn't need editing in some fashion.
There are definitely times—maybe it's in a scene or maybe in a certain moment in a novel, or part of an essay—where I don't quite know where it needs to go or what needs to happen next. I feel like that's okay because in part, I don't feel like that's my job as the editor—to actually say what needs to happen next. Sometimes I'll have very prescriptive suggestions but other times I don’t quite know what needs to change. So I will just put it out and say, This feels incomplete or I'm not sure where this needs to go, but it needs a few beats longer, or It feels like you're not really getting into the scene deep enough. That's the moment where we'll talk it out, my experience of reading it and what I feel is missing. Then the writer will go from there and kind of feel into the characters in the moment and see what needs to come next. That's one of the great parts of being an editor. You give your notes to a writer and then when you see the revision and you see certain scenes that are totally going in a new direction or have taken on a completely new life, it's just so amazing to see that process and to think, This is better than I could've imagined it. That process is really beautiful.
What is the editing process like for you from the moment you receive a manuscript to the moment the book is ready for publication? Is there a specific set of steps you follow?
CB: I like to dive right in. I will start reading and editing at the same time because what I find is really valuable is that it's the first time I'm reading something completely fresh. So I am a typical reader. I am anybody who's picking up this book. A lot of my confusions come up in that first read because I don't know what's going to happen. I will make a ton of notes. Even if things are clarified later, I still make a ton of notes in the process because I like the writer to see where I'm confused, what doesn't make sense to me. I like to go through the whole thing with that fresh eye, just experiencing the book and still making a ton of edits. As I go, I also make notes of chapters and scenes and things I want to go back to, to see how they feel to me when I know how the book ends. After I finish, I'll go back to the beginning of the book and move through certain scenes. With that perspective of the ending, I will then start to suggest certain paths that can be taken. I'll start going into the motivations and intentions of the scene or of the characters and trying to figure out what is trying to be said so that there's more weight to those moments. That's how my process has taken shape. I really feel that the first read is so valuable because you're completely open, you don't know what's going to happen. It’s really essential to just write down those ‘first read’ notes that are so helpful for writers. That feedback is amazing.
You teach revision at the School of the Arts. Many young writers are intimidated by the revision/editing/drafting process. Can you speak a little about your philosophies for revision?
CB: Revision is a muscle that you learn to flex more and more. It isn’t as scary as you think. It’s actually a ton of fun because you really start to shape something in a way that is accurately depicting what's in your head. You're creating that bridge between the writer and the reader. Editing is that bridge between the two. It helps you take what's in your head and deliver it to the reader in such a way that they're going to experience the story that you want to tell them. So revision can be an amazing thing if you give yourself this freedom to experiment, to not be too wedded to what you have already. To try new things and to start over and just really try to shape things and not be too stuck on one way. That could be the greatest gift that you give yourself—that freedom of space to try new things and be curious and discover how the story wants to finally flourish.
What advice would you give to artists who are just starting to figure out process and routine?
CB: Try to relieve yourself of the pressure of trying to follow anybody else's rules or anybody else's particular paths, knowing that your path is unique to you and that your process is unique to you. Learn what that means for you—what that means for your writing routine on a day to day basis. Learn how to trust your own internal guidance and intuition, which can be so difficult, but worth it. A lot of the time we look outside of ourselves for answers, guidance, external validation and praise to kind of guide the way forward in terms of what's working and what's not. If you can work on your own internal guidance to kind of feel your way through it, that is a huge lesson for anybody, not just in writing, but in daily life. Be able to reposition and move in a different direction. Don’t stay wedded to one thing just because you started it that way. Having that flexibility, experimentation, curiosity, and agility—I think that that would be my greatest advice for writers and anybody in life.