Did anyone do the exercise I posted in my last Tips?

Just in case you don’t think it’s salient: I just got an Aims page draft that’s two pages. It needs to be one.

Now, this is not wrong or bad.

I’m a huge proponent of over-writing. Getting it all down, stream-of-consciousness, seeing what fits or might fit. My brain sometimes makes new or different associations when I write things down—by hand, preferably, but also typing works.

But if you’re going to be an over-writer, you have to be a strict editor. You have to cut and cut and cut again. You have to take a six-line paragraph and think about how to say the same thing in three. Not just by cutting words, but by rewriting. I’m talking revising, not editing.

Editing is switching a word here and there; correcting grammar, punctuation, and syntax; spell-checking and polishing.

Revising is trusting yourself enough to take a blank page and try to say the same thing you just wrote in a different way, so that it’s more impactful, clear, and concise.

Readers don’t need to walk the same path you did. They don’t need every little thought that you originally wrote down. In fact, your stream-of-consciousness first draft won’t be understood by anyone except you.

The first time you travel somewhere, you might make some wrong turns, have to do a U-turn, maybe ask for directions, stop and check the map again.

If you were giving someone directions to that same place, you wouldn’t include all those wrong turns—extra steps that were important for you as you ventured on the journey, but that aren’t needed for someone to follow you.

Make sure your words are the same.