Rewrites: Some Encouragement

Here is a link to a wonderful piece on Poynter Online, about rewrites:

Let's Try It One More Time: A Tale of Three Best-Sellers

How encouraging to know that when a rewrite morphs into a REWRITE, we're not alone.

When I began my last rewrite, I naively thought I would just be cutting and pruning, correcting a few punctuation errors, etc. After all, the book was basicly perfect. I only needed to smooth it out.

That philosophy got me through the second chapter. Then I started over.

One year later, I am half-way through. The word count has been whacked by 30%. I hardly even look at the previous draft when I sit down at the computer. Good to learn that this is all normal, and this is what writers do. Thank you, Poynter Institute, Michael Chabon, Arthur Golden, and David Guterson.