I find it much easier to write when I write from abundance; I just pour and pour material onto the table, and then I cut and prune and shape it. Earlier, when I wrote more slowly, I would get so precious about each word and couldn’t navigate as freely as I need to get to things that I end up liking. But if I pour 10,000 words into a draft, I can cut 8,000 and it will feel like nothing, which makes it easier to be bold and let it flow. I can pour every idea on the page, even the least-likely-to-work, and then only keep the lucky accidents. If I’m unsure about something, I just delete it—I can always just retype something similar later if it turns out it was needed. My drafts are really, truly, abysmally horrible-looking. It is a bunch of misspelled notes, and rambling voice transcriptions, etc, etc. But I need that abundance, carelessness, and non-preciousness to stumble upon things that feel fresh to me.