You are not alone. Paul Graham has been writing essays for a long time, and he is revising and rewriting a lot too. Here you can see him write one of his essays as an edit replay.
The drafts of the essay I published today. This history is unusually messy. There’s a gap while I went to California to meet the current YC batch. Then while I was there I heard the talk that made me write “Founder Mode.” Plus I started over twice, most recently 4 days ago.
Yep! In fact, an earlier draft of this post included a mention of Paul Graham, because he’s a popular and well-liked example of someone who has a similar process to the one I use (though I don’t know if he does it for the same reasons).
In that earlier draft, I contrasted Graham with Scott Alexander, who I vaguely recall mentioning that he basically sits down at his computer and a couple hours later a finish piece of writing has appeared. But I couldn’t find a good reference of this being Scott’s process, so maybe it’s just a thing I talked with him about in person one time.
In the end I decided this was an unnecessary tangent for the body of the text, but I’m very glad to have a chance to talk about it in the comments! Thanks!
People used to ask me for writing advice. And I, in all earnestness, would say “Just transcribe your thoughts onto paper exactly like they sound in your head.” It turns out that doesn’t work for other people. Maybe it doesn’t work for me either, and it just feels like it does.
and
I’ve written a few hundred to a few thousand words pretty much every day for the past ten years.
But as I’ve said before, this has taken exactly zero willpower. It’s more that I can’t stop even if I want to. Part of that is probably that when I write, I feel really good about having expressed exactly what it was I meant to say. Lots of people read it, they comment, they praise me, I feel good, I’m encouraged to keep writing, and it’s exactly the same virtuous cycle as my brother got from his piano practice.
You are not alone. Paul Graham has been writing essays for a long time, and he is revising and rewriting a lot too. Here you can see him write one of his essays as an edit replay.
Also: “only one sentence in the final version is the same in the first draft.”
Also:
Yep! In fact, an earlier draft of this post included a mention of Paul Graham, because he’s a popular and well-liked example of someone who has a similar process to the one I use (though I don’t know if he does it for the same reasons).
In that earlier draft, I contrasted Graham with Scott Alexander, who I vaguely recall mentioning that he basically sits down at his computer and a couple hours later a finish piece of writing has appeared. But I couldn’t find a good reference of this being Scott’s process, so maybe it’s just a thing I talked with him about in person one time.
In the end I decided this was an unnecessary tangent for the body of the text, but I’m very glad to have a chance to talk about it in the comments! Thanks!
I think what you are looking for is this:
Scott Alexander:
and
(the included link is also directly relevant)