Good writing always hinges on good editing skills. If you can’t revise your drafts (with the help of a capable writing software) to make them clearer, tighter and more powerful, you’re leaving plenty of room for improvement. The work you turn out is never nearly as good as it could be.
If you want to improve your ability to revise your own writing, then devote at least one day a week to practicing the skill. Rather than halve the time by drafting and then waxing your revision process, turn to other people’s work. Ask your writer friends if they have any drafts you can polish; stumble onto haphazardly-written blogs and work on them (without informing anyone – you’re throwing it away later anyway); open up a magazine and try to improve on the published pieces.
When your revise other people’s work in this manner, you adopt much more than the techniques that lead to good revisions. Most of the time, you’ll end up finding the inner reactions that have lead to those techniques – that gnawing thought that something about what is written is plain intolerable.
Because you expose yourself to such things while being completely undetached, you end up acquiring a stronger critical mind – a crucial characteristic for being able to revise material well. More than that, though, you develop a natural instinct that allows you to avoid many pitfalls during your drafting process, allowing your writing to become more mature.
