ABSTRACT
Why have I linked these two issues? Because we nearly all have a tendency to think and write in clichés. Our first draft, of a thought, of the expression of a feeling, of an application letter, of a poem, will always have hackneyed, tired phrases in it, because it is hard enough work to get started let alone worry about freshness. Later, as we become owners of a second draft on which we can reflect, we can see those phrases for what they are, and cut them away, or change them. We can’t act on a text until we have one. But the first draft will be the first of two, or of several, or of many, the total number depending, at least in part, on the importance of the final product.
