Editing[*] is deliberating—choosing a word or a thought, dismissing or advancing; it comes up often in this book as a way to describe artistic decision-making. And in my journalism career, editing had served me well. My temperament was well suited to it. I always had trouble writing—I was too self-conscious (you can see a pattern). And I couldn’t

In fact, one research study by psychologists specialising in creative persistence found that there’s something inherent about the creative process itself that causes what they call ‘disfluency’.1 Any creative project involves making mistakes, navigating blind corners, getting lost down dead ends, feeling embarrassed by early attempts.