[clolege]

Now that you mention it, my old style of editing might have been something that I learned, rather than was explicitly taught.

I used to frame writing as a painful activity, so once I had a "workable" rough draft, I would break out a scalpel and try to make it readable with word surgery. I would spend hours staring at the same few paragraphs, and it was horrible.

Now I just delete it. It feels like a clean slate, but the slate in my brain has made opinions about what's important to say and how to say it better.

The two approaches exercise completely different muscles, and what I like about the "rewrite" approach is that it exercises some of the same muscles that will help me communicate myself properly on the first try.