The start of phase two of ‘The Book’!
Back on the 1st November, I started out on the journey to write, before the end of November, a novel of a minimum of 50,000 words. It was part of the NaNoWriMo annual encouragement for new writers. To my amazement, I completed a first draft.
However, now comes the hard work! For as Stephen King explains in his book, On Writing,
When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story, when you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. (p. 57)
Or as I read somewhere else: Your first write is for you, your rewrite is for your readers.
Either way it doesn’t get around the fact that for the next several weeks I need to be spending hours rewriting the first draft.
Which is my way of saying that until that rewrite is complete I won’t be able to spend so much time writing posts for Learning from Dogs. In other words, there will be more republication of other articles and essays that catch my interest, repeat posts back from the earlier days of the blog and the publication of essays that you, dear reader, have sent me (hint!!).
TED Talks is an amazing resource that thousands use. Not infrequently, a TED Talk finds its way to these pages; as indeed one on dieting will be offered tomorrow.
For today, however, enjoy this wonderful, and powerful, TED Talk by Benjamin H. Bratton.
Learning from Dogs 
In an interview by Harry Kreisler (1986) on “The Art of Good Writing” John Kenneth Galbraith said [My CAPS]:
“One extraordinary part of good writing is to avoid excess, which many writers do not understand. The next thing, which of course is obvious, is to be aware of the music, the symphony of words, and to make written expression acceptable to the ear. . . . THE THIRD THING IS NEVER TO ASSUME THAT YOUR FIRST DRAFT IS RIGHT. The first draft, when you’re writing, involves the terrible problem of thought combined with the terrible problem of composition. And it is only inthe second and third and fourth drafts that you really escape that original pain and have the opportunity to get it right. Again, I’m repeating myself; I’VE SAID MANY TIMES THAT I DO NOT PUT THAT NOTE OF SPONTANEITY THAT MY CRITICS LIKE INTO ANYTHING BUT THE FIFTH DRAFT.
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Kreisler, H. 1986. “Intellectual Journey: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom – Conversations with John Kenneth Galbraith – The Art of Good Writing”; online at / “TheArt of Good Writing” [where ‘/” means “click on”].
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Richard, (it is Richard, isn’t it?) thank you so much for calling by and leaving that compelling advice. Paul
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