I love looking at Honorรฉ de Balzacโs manuscripts. Itโs as if he was more coffee than man, speed-running through pages like Super Mario.
Except the pages tell a different story.
Theyโre covered with corrections. Crossed-out sentences. Additions squeezed into margins. Sometimes the printerโs proofs came back looking like Balzac had declared war on the typesetter.
And this was after heโd supposedly finished writing.
Balzacโs work habits were legendary. He wore a white monkโs robe, wrote through the night, and fueled marathon sessions with astonishing amounts of coffee. He was racing debts, deadlines, and his ambition to build La Comรฉdie humaine, a sprawling portrait of French society.
But look again at those manuscripts.
The interesting part isnโt how quickly he could fill a page. Itโs how much work he was willing to do afterward.
A headline can be tightened. A claim can be supported. A sales argument can be made clearer.
But revisions have a price, too.
Every extra hour polishing a sales letter is an hour it isnโt being tested against actual buyers. Eventually, the next revision becomes a bet: will this change improve the message enough to justify the delay?
Hereโs a useful question before reopening a draft: ๐๐ฉ๐ข๐ต ๐ด๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ค๐ช๐ง๐ช๐ค ๐ฑ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฃ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ฎ ๐ข๐ฎ ๐ ๐ง๐ช๐น๐ช๐ฏ๐จ?
If you can name the problem, revise. If youโre just making the words feel nicer, consider publishing.
Balzacโs coffee habit makes the better anecdote. His manuscripts raise the better question.
When has your writing justified its next revision?
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