PORTLAND, Maine — The key to good writing, it’s often said, is rewriting. Don’t expect a first draft to shine. Don’t even expect it to be halfway decent. Just get something on paper, then make it better.
Debra Spark appreciates the value of that advice. With five novels, two books of short stories, and two volumes of essays on writing fiction to her credit, she teaches at Colby College in Waterville, mostly courses on, not surprisingly, fiction writing.
With her latest novel, she got off to a rough start. Her plan was to write a nonfiction book about the Preble Street soup kitchen in Portland, but she had a hard time finding her way with the story and soon went in a different direction.
"The nonfiction book about Preble Street became a sort of art mystery," she said. "Once I added art to the mix, I could write something. I was struggling before that."
The work that emerged is "Discipline," her fifth novel.
Rewriting has saved Spark, as it has saved so many writers before. The exact cure for a story that’s ailing varies from book to book, but the basic approach does not.
"I just go back and back and back and revise," she said.