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Fellow Basher here. I’ve heard the advice to “just get it all on the page and edit later” so many times and it has never really made sense to me. I write something like Shlemiel the painter’s algorithm from this old Joel on Software article [0]. Write a bit, reread everything, tweak, write some more, reread everything again, tweak. The re-reading cycles aren’t always back to the very beginning, sometimes it’s just the current paragraph or sentence. But I’d definitely say I edit as I go. I’ve tried not doing this, but I never get very far with that before it starts to stress me out that the writing isn’t coming out right.

And then afterwards, read the thing another 50 times just in case, especially if it’s an email.

0: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/12/11/back-to-basics/




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