A hidden perk of blogging: the revision

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After more than a week of starting this blog, I realized that there is something about it that I really like: the revision part. Normally I write quite a lot by doing journaling and putting down ideas or random thoughts. But this type of writing, even though it feels nice, it never gets a proper revision - it is never written having in mind that someone else may read it.

I like the revision part: the purification of the text, the evolution of the original idea, killing the darlings, erasing unnecessary words, and reducing the text as much as possible. With a big text, revision can be tedious, but blog entries are bite size. It is the revision process that gives me the feeling of getting a final product and the satisfaction that comes with it. There is also an inner transformation during the process - sometimes the original message can transmute.

Brandon Sanderson - I already talked about this author - wrote more than ten novels before getting published, but he never got down to actually do a proper revision of these novels. It was only after learning to revise that he got published. Hear his story (starting at time 26:37):


 

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