ABSTRACT
Harry Wolcott encapsulates the process of revision beautifully: some of the best advice the author have ever found for writers happened to be included with the directions for assembling a new wheelbarrow: make sure all parts are properly in place before tightening. The revision strategy advocated in the chapter, and used to finetune the book, is only one of many. Plan for the first-draft revision as an integrated whole, leaving other projects on the side while you are working on it. The first revision is a large-scale, overall process, and designed to refine your first draft into a coherent book. The Words are Part of the last paragraph of The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization, a book about ancient climate change, human adaptation, and, inevitably, anthropogenic global warming. The first revision is when the manuscript begins to become a book. The second one gives one a first sense of the final draft.
