How much rewriting or revision do you do?

Originally asked

The Paris Review, to novelists and poets, The Art of Fiction

A recurring Art of Fiction craft question, sometimes asked about daily rewriting and sometimes about the number of drafts.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Edward Albee said elsewhere, not written here
I don’t rewrite. Well, not much. I think I probably do all the rewriting that I’m going to do before I’m aware that I’m writing the play because obviously, the creativity resists — resides — in the unconscious, right? Probably resists the unconscious, too — resides in the unconscious. My plays, I think, are pretty much determined before I become aware of them. I think they formulated there, and then they move into the conscious mind, and then onto the page. By the time I’m willing to commit a play to paper, I pretty much know — or can trust — the characters to write the play for me. So, I don’t impose. I let them have their heads and say and do what they want, and it turns out to be a play.

Academy of Achievement interview, 2005 source ↗

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