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On Redoing Things
The way to do a piece of writing is three or four times over, never once. For me, the hardest part comes first, getting something—anything—out in front of me. Sometimes in a nervous frenzy I just fling words as if I were flinging mud at a wall. Blurt out, heave out, babble out something—anything—as a first draft. With that, you have achieved a sort
... See moreJohn McPhee • Draft No. 4
If you’re going to do high-level creative work, you have to accept the messiness of your initial creations, knowing that excellence is born from the sisters of patience and iteration.
The second you start condemning young and fragile ideas, you’re toast.
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David Perellx.comRewriting is the essence of writing well: it’s where the game is won or lost. That idea is hard to accept. We all have an emotional equity in our first draft; we can’t believe that it wasn’t born perfect. But the odds are close to 100 percent that it wasn’t.
William Zinsser • On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction
Here is another famous Hemingway line on writing: “The first draft of anything is shit.”