The First Draft Problem

When you read something written, whether it's a book, or the instructions to your toaster, you want it to be as good as it could be. Well written, informative, clear, economical in its use of words.

That's why book writing and journalism include exhaustive processes to edit our scribblings. That's why writers think of writing as a craft. In the editing process scribblings become writing. Disjointed thoughts, through a collaborative process between writers and editors, become good writing.

But when I'm writing this blog, no one is telling me to cut this, or rewrite that. That's my concern. Certainly I do some editing myself. I rework for copy. I check my facts and my spelling.

But there are times when I don't have time for that. I'm just writing an idea. I get it on the page and I publish it. I think "I'll go back later and work on that." But the fact is that the world moves on. It's often a long time before I get back to a post. Sometimes I never get back there.

I suspect most blog writing is like this. And I suspect that very little is edited by a second person; an editor.

Which leads me to the lament of journalists and J-School professors. That content on the Web is not edited, crafted or fact-checked.

I call that The First Draft Problem. We're creating a huge resource of information, but it's all first draft content.