I once asked a well known science writer how many times he will revise passages. He sighed and replied "sometimes, for the difficult spots, maybe fifty to a hu

I once asked a well known science writer how many times he will revise passages. He sighed and replied "sometimes, for the difficult spots, maybe fifty to a hundred." This made me feel much better about my own writing, which often goes through many, many drafts. It also helped me appreciate Thomas Mann's maxim that a writer is someone who finds writing harder than other people.