JANE SMILEY

Most professional writers write three drafts or more. The first draft is often called the “vomit draft” or the “shitty first draft.” Don’t share it with anyone! Your ...

The first words you write are the first draft. Writing is thinking. You'll rarely know what exactly you want to say when you start writing.

The time you put into editing, reworking and refining turns your first draft into a second draft, and then into a third. If you keep refining it o...

The best way to start writing a book is to produce “two crappy pages a day.” It’s by carving out a small win each and every day — getting words on the page — that a boo...