If you want to shrink something,
you must first allow it to expand.
If you want to get rid of something,
you must first allow it to flourish. -“Tao Te Ching” by Lao-Tzu (Stephen Mitchell translation)
“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start by somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper.”-Anne Lamott
“A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.” -Mark Twain
“Writing is rewriting. I will write 1,000 pages for a 60-page book. I throw away 90% of it, and that’s the best part of the book.” -Dr. Seuss
“The first draft of anything is shit.” -Ernest Hemmingway
“The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader, not its writer.” -Zadie Smith
One of the most painful things about writing is that you have to write a whole lot of crap that you know is crap while you’re writing it, but you still have to write it. And then you have to excise 90% of it.
The whole process sucks and feels like a huge waste of time. You just want to get to the good stuff.
I wish there was another way. There isn’t.
