John Murrell on Writing versus Editing

Today marks the last day for John Murrell as blogger in chief for a wonderful blog called Good Morning Silicon Valley. His explanation of the difference for him between writing and editing:

“But for me at least, the process of writing is wearing. I’m a grinder, and there’s a lot of chair squirming and wandering around and staring at the stars and sometimes some cursing that goes into the production of the daily sausage. And it’s a largely solitary pursuit, which appeals to my inborn reclusive nature, but can sometimes result in getting cabin fever from living in one’s own head too long. Editing, on the other hand, has its own collaborative and craftsmanlike pleasures and activates a different synaptic configuration than writing. You start with a piece of work already in front of you, and the job is to turn it this way and that to examine all its angles and components, to check for gaps or loose fittings, to do a little tweaking here and polishing there, and finally to set it loose at least a bit better than it was (and never any worse).”

This entry was posted in Society, Technology. Bookmark the permalink.