Writing is rewriting.No need to think about style and elegance, not at first. Just write.
Write the first draft with your heart, refine it later with your head.
It's already inside you, like Michelangelo's David was already inside the marble. Let it out.
It was Ernest Hemingway who said writing is rewriting. Those of you who have read Hemingway know how succinct he could be. At times, perhaps too much so. But then, he was his own worst critic, finally resorting to a shotgun when liquor proved too slow.
The late George Plimpton became famous for his interviews and for his first-hand experience reports. In an interview with Ernest Hemingway, the famous author mentioned that he had rewritten the ending to "A Farewell to Arms" 39 times. When Plimpton asked him why so many times, Hemingway responded simply that he wanted to get the words right.
I can't remember ever having rewritten anything 39 times, but neither does anything I write ever appear in the original form.
A century or so ago I once worked for a couple of years at a small radio station, and like the other sales staff had to churn out copy under a deadline gun. So I did learn to write things in my head as I typed and make it come out right the first time. Or at least acceptably right for a radio commercial, containing just the right number of cliches to make it come out to exactly 30 seconds. If one wanted his stuff produced that evening, one learned to write fast and get on with the next 30 seconds of forgettable drivel. But that kind of crap writing makes for pretty weak story lines.
I no longer want to write things that will make you have an irresistible impulse to run out and buy new carpet or eat at certain restaurants, and so I don't write like that anymore. I find I have become more like Papa Hemingway. Minus the shotgun, of course.
Writing is rewriting.
