so far…

I’ve started the revision process of the book chapter drafts.

It’s still early, but already a pretty consistent mathematical pattern has emerged. It is taking only about 20% as much time to revise the sections as it took to write them. That’s the beauty of just plowing through a rough draft– they are generally a lot better than you think they are. The content is usually exactly where it needs to be, and in the right order. All that remains at this stage is to make the content convincing.

It is wrong to think that content, propositions, arguments, are convincing or unconvincing in and of themselves. Propositions and arguments skate along the surface of a topic, as McLuhan knew. Your subject becomes convincing only when the reader sees why it must be so, and walks amidst your words as if in a wonderland.

Naturally, the current 20% figure will expand a lot once I get to the sections that are too short rather than too long, because I’ll need to add additional content in those sections and in a few cases do a bit more thinking about things.

Nonetheless, if that ratio holds up, I’ll have perfectly polished versions of Chapters 1 and 2 by lunchtime tomorrow.

speed = morale