Editing is Writing
The initial draft is a start, but don't count your proverbial chickens too soon!
Editing is where the real writing is done. The practice of editing is actually a principle of writing. once well-known and always followed, except by hacks, who churned out page after page of blather.
Reading Substack, it is clear to me that perhaps only 1 of every 50 posts I have read has been edited after its initial draft; that is why the quality of writing on Substack is so poor. It ought to be raised. I write this to remind Substack writers of their duty to the written word and to our patrimony in the English language; but they also owe it to themselves, who consider themselves public intellectuals in some sense, to exemplify the best version of themselves.
An initial writing is but a draft. Re-reading is hearing back one’s own voice — it is a dialogue with oneself. The conversation is the parsing of one’s own meaning, as if in discussion. In an essay I am writing, I drafted this:
“Disagreement and disputation can never be dispassionately dispensed with because…”
At the time, I liked it. Three days later, I read it back to myself. Briefly, the dialogue with self:
Sounds dilletante-ish. Don’t like the conclusory “never.” The repeated “dis” is distracting. And what is the difference, substantively, between disagreement and disputation in the context of the subject matter? And what did I really mean by the phrase? Actually something a bit different from what I thought I had meant. Out the door it went.
In 30 seconds, I had a substitute: “At some point, adherents become incapable of dispassionate disputation.” This is much better, because it more accurately represents my thought, reads less distractingly and fits more aptly in the paragraph. But still, even this must be re-read when this second draft is completed — it may have to be deep-sixed or brought to the top of the paragraph or who knows? But for now, it suffices.
I held this dialogue with myself for every sentence of my draft. Of course, it takes time and effort, even for me with 50 years of writing under my belt. But, it is the only way to achieve cogency and quality in written expression.
This is real writing — the editing of one’s initial blurb, that is, the conversation with oneself to clarify one’s meaning, image and intention.