The Ten Stupid Things Writers Do to Mess Up Their Lives
#6
“Revision? Whaddya mean? I got it right the first time.”
On the other end of the spectrum from those who foist their manuscripts on friends, relatives, neighbors and people they meet in the cereal aisle are those writers who don’t even pass their stories by their own eyes. Hey: It’s written; it’s spell-checked; it’s out the door.
There are a number of equally inexcusable reasons for this bad behavior. Maybe you haven’t given yourself the time to properly revise your work. Or maybe you don’t yet understand how important revision is to good writing. Revision isn’t an afterthought. It isn’t a quick once-over. It is an essential process that gives you the opportunity not merely to correct errors but to re-think, re-structure and re-invent. Or maybe you think the piece is so good it doesn’t need revision (Go immediately to Stupid Thing #9).