Stuck on a short story? Your novel unraveling in subplots and sidelights? Or is it a poem sliding just to the left of right-on-target, no matter how many times you rework it?

Why not try a new look?

Seriously.

When you have labored over a piece again and again and it still won't come right, I suggest a revision. Not more editing, not a rewrite, but a re-vision; a new vision, a look at the material from a different perspective.

Years ago, after struggling for weeks, then months, on an emotion-laden sestina, I took an armload of notes, starts, stanzas, full drafts and complete frustration to a poet friend. "Ah, you have been busy," she murmured. "I am guessing you need true revision. Forget everything you know about revising, and start again. Did you know the word revision comes from the Latin 'revidere', meaning simply to 'see again'?" Handing me back my bulging folder she said, "Put all of this away. Look into yourself and see what drives this work, what must really be said. Then write that- from your heart."

Freed of my self-imposed form limitation, I looked anew at the feelings and memories that fueled my need to write. In mere days twelve brief lines, a successful free verse poem, emerged.

There are no rules about re-visioning. Seeing your work in a new way may lead to any number of possibilities. Your novel may need to be written from a changed point of view: from omniscient to first person, perhaps, or from objective narrator to limited third person. (Ursula LeGuin, in Steering the Craft, 8th Mountain Press, has a wonderful section on POV and voice. I urge you to read it and work the exercises. You will come to a whole new appreciation of these tools and their power.) Whose story is it? What about this tale or this character has meaning for you? Is there a sub-plot that won't stay 'sub'? What if those characters are the ones who should really be telling this?

Of course it is a wrench to set aside the pages and hours of work -- the lovely paragraphs, the stunning line breaks, the artful phrases and memorable word choices. But as always, what use are these pretty trinkets if the piece is still not finished? Consider the goal: a complete and successful work. The work already done is not wasted; consider it sharpening your skills, and look again with new eyes. Don't burn the pages, of course -- tuck them into your notebook of terrific lines and phrases. You may recycle all these in other projects. But get the work out of physical sight for awhile. Imagine the story being told by an interested, slightly involved observer, or by the protagonist himself. Write at least one important scene from that POV and see what happens.

What might happen is that the short story needs to be a novelette, or the focus shifted. Who is telling the story helps determine that focus; a story as told by the murderer will be far different than that told by the victim or the teenager who finds the body on the jogging trail. Do you perchance have a short story that could end in any number of ways, and any one of them be adequate? Look again: perhaps the ending already lies buried in the pages, and you have gone on writing past it. Forget all your preconceived notions about how this story goes, and it may tell you a different tale entirely, one you hadn't quite discovered.

Or have you done so many minor changes that you no longer have a sense of where it's all going? Revisit your initial urge to write this piece, and follow that thread. Examine what brought you to write this particular piece. What were the emotions? The feelings? The first line that came to you? Identify what you need to get out, what the theme is, or the demand to be heard. Then forget the logical mind for awhile, and give yourself up to your creativity.

If you are a poet who seldom uses form, this is a time to try it. Form provides structure, giving shape and lending substance to words. (We all know the drill of moving one word in a sentence to change meaning in surprising ways: "John loved only Mary. Only John loved Mary." Form can work that little miracle too.) While your concentration is busy setting up that structure, your creative self slips words and metaphors and ryhmes onto the skeleton shape. With both your logical mind and your creative self engaged, your hidden censor has no one to natter at, and you may find your poem has taken an unexpected and deeply felt stand.

It is essential to edit: change one word to a stronger synonym, change a line break, clean up punctuation, be certain of spelling. But a muddy work is not really cleared by these necessary tactics. When I at last abandoned my failed sestina, everything that was important to me, all the fear and love and anger, got said successfully another way. From thirty-nine lines to twelve, with far more power and persuasion.

The truth is, it is easy to write. The rest of that truth is, it is not at all easy to write clearly and well. If that is your goal, and you find yourself stuck, I encourage you to 'see again' your project, and with courage and dedication, make a deep 're-vision.'

And that's this writer's opinion.