revision

Writers know all the good reasons for subjecting their work to a sharp trim. Early drafts are notorious for repetition, indirection and overdevelopment of the trivial.

Allen Ginsberg instructs: "First thought, best thought." Oh, to have my every spontaneous thought count as poetry! No draft after draft like a draft

There is a saying: Genius is perseverance. While genius does not consist entirely of editing, without editing it's pretty useless.

When you print out your manuscript and read it, marking up with a pen, it sometimes feels like a criminal returning to the scene of a crime.

Then based on her own recent experience, the Divine Presence had a cruelly perverse sense of humor and His Grand Plan needed drastic revision.