Exercise: try that again

But this time, no looking

As an exercise, either write a short piece, or select a short piece that you’ve recently written. Put it away, and, from memory, rewrite it completely.

Is this exercise a colossal pain in the ass? Definitely. But, it also forces you the writer to cut out excess information and put only the most essential stuff on the page. Give it a try.

(I first learned about this exercise in a writing class years, years ago. The teacher had us hand in our written pieces, then sit there and rewrite them. It was terrible mind you, but it also worked incredibly well. The second pieces turned out far better, because having to re-create them from memory caused us to focus on the most important aspects and chuck the rest.)