Ernest Hemingway Quotes

I write the paragraph, then I'm crossing out, changing words, trying to improve it. When it seems more or less OK, then I type it up because sometimes it's almost illegible, and if I wait, I might not be able to read it the next day.

And the most important thing you can do is learn to edit yourself. And then go back and rewrite.

I'm constantly revising. Once the book is written and typed, I go through the entire draft again.

I don't write a quick draft and then revise; instead, I work slowly page by page, revising and polishing.

Usually, the way I write is to sit down at a typewriter after that year or so of what passes for thinking, and I write a first draft quite rapidly. Read it over. Make a few pencil corrections, where I think I've got the rhythms wrong in the speeches, for example, and then retype the whole thing. And in the retyping I discover that maybe one or two more speeches will come in. One or two more things will happen, but not much.

I should mention something that nobody ever thinks about, but proofreading takes a lot of time. After you write something, there are these proofs that keep coming, and there's this panicky feeling that 'This is me and I must make it better.'

The life of an editor is not a glamorous one. You're a fixer; you make things better.

My self-editing process is intense.

I don't do rewrites. I put all the pages in a pile next to the typewriter.

I rewrite my books many times before submitting them, and after my editor takes a look I wind up rewriting some more! It's a good thing I learned at an early age to keep on trying. Stick to it, and eventually you'll get there.

Sometimes I can spend as long revising a manuscript as I spent writing it in the first place.

I read what I write over and over and make corrections and improvements, until I reach the conclusion that the material deserves to stand on its own.

I draft quickly and then revise, a lot.

I very seldom read back into what I've written.

I have to write a first draft with a fountain pen before I type it up as a second.

I try and get it right the first time. I may rewrite a sentence four or five times, but I rarely go back and kill a whole page and rewrite it.

When I'm working on a book, I constantly retype my own sentences. Every day I go back to page one and just retype what I have. It gets me into a rhythm.

I'm really happy to have the chance to talk about the editing process. It's something that I think doesn't get the weight it deserves, especially with the rise of self-publishing.

Most of my early work was done on typewriter. And the only way to iterate drafts was to re-type it.

I number my drafts, and by the time a book is done, I'll have 75 or 80 drafts of some sections.

For any writer, a red pen is such a trigger.

I write longhand and I type and I rewrite on the typed pages.

I've always equated the writing process with editing, sort of like when I get through editing the movie, that's like my last draft of the screenplay.

The book really comes to life in the rewriting.

If there is aught of good in the style, it is the result of ceaseless toil in rewriting. Everything comes out wrong with me at first; but when once objectified in a crude shape, I can torture and poke and scrape and pat it till it offends me no more.