Rewriting: How Great Writing Happens

How much of your time do you spend each on the writing and the rewriting process?  Do you breeze through the composition and spend the rest of the time editing?  Or do you edit in real-time while you’re in the thick of writing?

If you’re looking to speed up your writing process, it’s generally recommended to separate the activities of writing and rewriting.  Write your first draft quickly and follow it up with ardent proofreading and editing.  if you have the time, rewrite it more than once, working to make each iteration better than the last.  As a rule, allow for a rewriting period of at least twice the time it took you to work on the first draft.

What about mistakes in grammar and sentence structure?  Errors will happen, whether you write your first draft with utmost attention or breeze through it, so let them be.  It’s more important to make sure you allow for enough time to go through the work again, whether you wish to do the proofing manually or with an English writing software.

What about weak sentences?  Take note at your daily conversation.  How much of the statements you construct are strong and how many are weak?  It’s the same way with writing.  Let the weak ideas and sentences come together with ones that are more powerful – you’ll have a chance to fix them if you allow enough time for editing.

Always be confident that what you write is good enough for a first draft.  Even if that aplomb is misplaced, you’ll always have the chance to rectify it when you go back for the rewriting.