How we write and edit in Lex (Live Session)
Not long ago I read an interview with a teacher who had come up with an interesting way of approaching revision. She’d labeled student work either publishable or revisable. In other words, it was either something good, or something moving in that direction. So much of editing feels like harsh judgment. This was promise.
Anna Quindlen • Write for Your Life
The process of cultivating taste is a lot like the writing and editing process. Here’s George Saunders on the revision process. “The way I revise is: I read my own text and imagine a little meter in my head, with “P” on one side (“Positive”) and “N” on the other (“Negative”)... This involves making thousands of what I’ve come to think of as “micro-
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
That’s how I see revision: a chance for the writer’s intuition to assert itself over and over.