The Agony of Revision, the Ecstasy of Discovery

Rewriting is hard but don’t you dare skip it

Occasionally, life hands us the opportunity for a do-over. And when it does, we may seize a chance to right a wrong, succeed where we have failed before, and wipe a dirty or imperfect slate clean again.

Among writers (and other creators), the do-over takes a very special form that we call “revision.” Like mythical tricksters, revision appears in many gu…