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Comment by scott_s | Hacker News Reader

I find your last sentence amusing because I actually prefer editing to writing. It's when I'm editing that I feel like I'm actually applying a craft. I get the same kind of satisfaction from editing my words that I do from refactoring my code. In both cases, it is often only after doing the initial work that I realize how it should be structured, and reworking it into that elegant structure is satisfying.

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Can't agree with you more, both for refactoring code and editing prose.

I find it also sometimes helps to perform the revisions while in a somewhat altered state of mind (be it mood, setting, music, minor inebriation, or otherwise). It helps you look at the first draft with fresh eyes and see better ways of structuring things and removing excess. Make a version with your prospective changes, then compare the before and after copies a day or two later (this time sober if you weren't before...).

I never thought to compare writing words and writing code, but it's true. The writing phase is simply getting all the ideas out, and the editing phase is to make... beauty out of chaos!

I am the same way. I found it surprising. I get so much positive feedback from the editing process that I have actually developed a routine of editing as I draft. Although it improves the quality of my draft, it takes ages. For poetry, it worked well. For novels, I think I'll need to break the habit.

Though for what it's worth, I've seen a lot of professional authors that warn about that as another kind of trap that beginners fall into. That is, paying too much attention to the revision process, at the expense of producing actual finished works.

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