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05/11/2012

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This makes me feel better about the last couple of posts I wrote, which I published then edited, because I wasn't happy with them. It's not my ideal modus operandi, though. I prefer to polish stuff then publish it.

Really like your blog, Edward. It's refreshing to read a different take on the topics you cover. Keep the posts coming.

This seems to ignore the effect on readers of incomplete and unedited text. Obviously, there's a reason to publish certain things quickly, but it's best if you can get something out soon without errors of spelling, grammar, and fact.

Adam,

Thanks for the comment. I hope that the "coherent" idea gets the point across that the first thing that you get to the world should be self-contained to the point of completeness as well as edited to the point of coherency. I don't know that this first public draft got that sense completely right.

The space that I want to leave in some of my own writing is for the "question mark node" (as Chris Locke put it to me about a decade ago) - the open point in the narrative where you are plain to yourself about what you don't know, so that you have a chance to fill it in when you are more ready.

I don't have a high tolerance for errors of spelling and grammar, and there's no point in publishing a non-fact. I'm willing, though, to make space for an incomplete image in my narrative because at times I'll want to go back and refine details from an evolving story.

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