The rumor about Mozart is that he could simply sit down and write perfect music without ever having to amend, change, fix, tweak, or rewrite. Music so beautiful it sounded like the angels wrote it flowed out of his leaky fountain pen, his fingers propelled by God.
I don’t know if I really believe these rumors about Mozart. I would bet a lot of money that he rewrote and edited, just like everyone else. But even if it is true of Mozart – I am not Mozart. Nor is anyone else I know. As I write, I know that I will think of ways to make my writing more compelling, that I’ll go back and streamline, chop, highlight, fix sloppy or inexact wording, you name it. I will have to edit.
When I write for myself, I don’t let anyone else read my “stuff” until I’ve done some self-editing. But one of the challenges of ghostwriting is that I have to share interim rough drafts with my clients, so they know how things are progressing. And because my clients are not professional writers, they often have a totally unrealistic idea of what a professional writer does.
People who aren’t professional writers may think that professional writers are Mozarts. They think we can make magic words zip right off our fingers, without having to revise, edit, revise, edit, revise . . .
But actually this is the exact opposite of what does happen. Professional writers know that the first (or the second or third) version will not be the final one. The revisions and edits are what makes them a professional.
Just a reminder, in case one of my clients is reading this . . . I am not Mozart.
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