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Thanks so much for sharing this, I really appreciate it! If/when I write a follow up to this piece, I'll need to include this story and read Thompson's book. Th
by herbertl 4y ago
Thanks so much for sharing this, I really appreciate it! If/when I write a follow up to this piece, I'll need to include this story and read Thompson's book. That fragment you shared reminds me of what consultant/author/teacher Roger Martin wrote at Medium:
> The most important advice I ever received on writing was from a fellow named Bernie Avishai, a great writer/editor and friend, to whom I was complaining about how much editing my writing took. He observed that the reason that I was complaining about editing was that I probably believed that I thought in order to write. My response was “Duh, of course, I think in order to write.” Bernie explained that instead, one writes to think. The human mind can only think so much without seeing a written manifestation of its thinking. You need to write down your thinking, however primitive, in order to be able to look at it and say: “That is not quite right.” Then you will be able to figure out how to make it better. And then by looking at the resulting improvement, you will be capable of saying: “That is still not quite right.” And so on, until it is a much more sophisticated view of your thinking.
The lesson for me is that editing is a feature of the writing process, not a bug. Now, I don’t begrudge editing. I realize that it is just part of the process of helping me think. I love the process of editing! Nothing that anyone sees from me on Medium has been edited less than a dozen times. Each time, it is a slightly better expression of what is in my head.
Via: https://medium.com/creators-hub/the-management-strategist-who-wrote-for-a-year-straight-d34be01c6dac https://medium.com/creators-hub/the-management-strategist-wh...
- TaXaZ 4y agowholeheartedly agree, just it's not "getting better at representing what I thought". Instead, it's a tool of thought process, which is dynamic. These to interwoven in a dynamic relation and it's hard to separate them.
- itsmemattchung 4y agoAs Neil Strauss puts it, "the true art of writing is in the revising." First draft you start with a clay (the first draft) and in the second pass, you revise, sculpting the clay, attempting to edit through an ideal reader's eyes.
- BurningFrog 4y agoAlso the best way to write good software. First wrote bad code that works, then fix what's wrong with it.
- hvs 4y agoI agree. Especially when you don't really know how something is going to work. So many times when I'm working on a hard problem, coding out half a solution makes the rest of it naturally fall out (or show that I was completely wrong) without having to consciously think about it.
- dspillett 4y ago1. Make it work. 2. Make it work *right*. 3. Make it work fast. (4. Make it work right again…)
- BurningFrog 4y agoI put a "make it readable" step in there somewhere, but basically that's the cycle.
- hbrn 4y agoUnfortunately a lot of folks I met fall into this trap: I'm a senior engineer with XX years of experience, I cannot write bad code. Still haven't found a good way to convince them.
- tpoacher 4y agoThey are both right. From their personal points of view. Some people do X best, others do Y. The difference between propositional and syllogistic logic is important to keep in mind when making broad arguments like that about 'how stuff works'. Especially when 'stuff' refers to brains of people with individual differences.
- visarga 4y ago> Nothing that anyone sees from me on Medium has been edited less than a dozen times. Same for me on all my comments. I listen to my comments on TTS, edit, repeat ... At times I've spent 30 minutes on a single reply. It's very enjoyable to hear the end result.
- kitd 4y ago"I would have written you a shorter letter but I didn't have time" - Blaise Pascal, et al