Nice writing from Alois wondering about good writing. My first drafts are rubbish. Its where you get it out, and from then on it is craft. I don’t actually know any decent writer who works any differently. Authority comes in many ways, how you use language, sources, tone, temper. Here in a blog it varies. Some are good, others rubbish, most in between. Some require more care than others. But what matters is the practice it provides. The problem with practice is it does not make perfect if you’re doing it wrong, it makes it permanent. So a blog, being public, is good practice because you quickly learn to pay attention to your words because they start to matter outside of our little hemispheres. It is a practice that involves noticing as a feedback loop.

The picture above. Something I’m just finishing, a book chapter. This is from the third draft. The first edit each page is a sea of red. In honours the biggest problem are students who think it has to be right the first time, it is an enormous invitation to writers block, and not finishing anything longer than what you can get away with in a night.