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The impressive thing about Asimov — incidental to the quality of the writing — is he probably sat down and blasted that out in an hour top-to-bottom with no edi
by justrealist 3y ago
The impressive thing about Asimov — incidental to the quality of the writing — is he probably sat down and blasted that out in an hour top-to-bottom with no edits.
Volumetrically one of the most impressive authors in history.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- iainmerrick 3y agoThere's a funny story in one of his essays where he's talking to Heinlein about this strange habit other writers have of endlessly redrafting. "I just write down the first draft, read it through from start to finish and write up the second draft, and that's it," Asimov says. "What's the second draft for?" Heinlein says.
- the_af 3y agoThis seems in contrast to Borges, who was never done with corrections and redrafting, going as far as to buy back an edition of a book already in print so that he could make additional corrections (or so the story goes...). Anyway, I'm a fan of Asimov.
- lainga 3y agoOne supposes Borges was able to arrive at the final copy by alternately holding up the first and second drafts in any predefined pattern he wanted...
- knodi123 3y agosee also: George Lucas "fixing" the star wars movies and making the originals impossible to find.
- olddustytrail 3y agoHave you ever seen the first draft of Star Wars? It's pretty bad.
- mikhailfranco 3y agoI'm a fan of Borges.
- jimmaswell 3y agoIt made the point in the first few paragraphs and the rest was a long winded beating of a dead horse. It could have done with more editing.
- kr0bat 3y agoGoing from discussing the curvature of the Earth to the finite speed of light wasn't to dunk on the student, it was to demonstrate the increasing relative correctness of our universal theories.
- jimmaswell 3y agoI suppose I would've been more engaged if I didn't already know all of these historical anecdotes. As it is I quickly began skimming.
- irrational 3y agoNot me. I’d like a lot more. Particularly I’d like this part fleshed out: > This particular thesis was addressed to me a quarter of a century ago by John Campbell, who specialized in irritating me. I only know of Campbell from “A Hero With a Thousand Faces”. I’d love to read more about how Campbell specialized in irritating Asimov.
- arkadyark 3y agoYou might be thinking of Joseph Campbell, not John Campbell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Campbell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Campbell)
- irrational 3y agoThank you for clarifying my mistake!
- nemo 3y agoThe author of “A Hero With a Thousand Faces” is Joseph Campbell. I think he might be talking about John W. Campbell who was a fellow sci-fi author.
- mcguire 3y agoThis is a very common thing in writers from the 1920s to the 60s---they made their living selling articles to magazines that paid a fraction of a cent per word. If they wanted to eat, they had to hammer something out as fast as physically possible.