This is The Nooner, a short daily (Monday - Saturday) newsletter slash podcast that has its very own section within Dispatches from Inner Space.
Every Sunday, I publish the Dispatches Weekly Digest (DWD), which lets you binge all the Nooners from the previous week. It also includes a meaningful song recommendation, and a short segment I call TMI, where I go off script to bring you backstage, so to speak.
Two more things about the DWD:
It goes on on the main Dispatches channel, so if you’re looking to spare your inbox from the daily emails without missing out on anything, you can specifically unsubscribe from The Nooner section, and still get the Digest on Sunday.
It’s only available to paid subscribers.
The Dispatches Weekly Digest is a labor of love, and I’m really proud of it, and if you want to hear it, I want you to hear it. So, if you can afford it…
And if you can’t, but you still think of yourself as one of my true fans, let me know and we’ll work something out.
Writing is rewriting.
I heard that a long time ago, and kept hearing it, as a kid, as an adult, as a writer, as a reader. It’s catchy, so it feels true.
And maybe it is true, but only if we properly define our terms.
So, is rewriting the same as editing?
Well...not really. Rewriting is just more writing.
Here’s how it happens.
When you start writing something new, you do your best to follow my best writing advice, and don’t edit.
When you’re finished writing whatever it is you set out to write, that’s called a draft.
Now that you have a draft, it’s time to let the editing committee into the room. This is easy because they’ve been eagerly outside ever since you started. And if they haven’t been very well-trained, some of them have probably been beating on the door.
Anyway, as soon as you open the door, they all eagerly pile in. Once they’re settled, you say, what do you think of this thing I wrote?
They’ll have lots of opinions. You listen to all of them, you nod, you ponder, you take some notes. You keep listening until it becomes clear that they’re just repeating themselves now, and it’s time to thank them for their input and make a decision.
Which parts of the draft to be edited, and which parts need to be rewritten?
If you decide that any or all of it needs to be rewritten, then you sternly insist that the committee leave the room again, so you can get back to writing, the same way you did before, until you have a new draft.
Rinse and repeat.
You do this until you’re all done with the writing, and the rewriting, which is the same kind of work as writing.
When people say “writing is rewriting,” what they are suggesting is that everything you write once, you’ll have to write again. I’m not sure this is true, but it doesn’t really matter.
What matters is that you don’t let the committee stay in the room with you when you’re writing or rewriting anything.
The editing committee only gets to stay in the room with you when it’s time to edit. Then, together, you’ll comb through the draft, and collaborate on how to fix all the little mistakes, massage all the awkward turns of phrases, and adjust all missing or extraneous details.
Eventually, you, the writer, sans committee, will have to make the final decision about when it is done. No more writing, no more rewriting, no more editing. The editing committee will never agree that it is finished. They’ll want to work on it forever. So you’ll have to learn to trust your gut to tell you when it’s time to send everyone home, put the thing in a box, and ship it.
Then what?
Well, if you’re a writer, you get back to writing.
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