ABSTRACT
Jerry described his approach with the analogy in his book Writing for Others, Writing for Ourselves: At the gym, it takes a steady regimen to develop muscles. Good analogy, in other words, gives writing clarity and energy. Tried to do that in the earlier in this chapter that compared free writing to stretching exercises at the gym, a warm-up that prepares both gym rat and writer for the heavy lifting ahead. The title of this chapter, too, is an analogy that compares writing to a musical form. Free writing can scale away the encrusted cadences of cliche, shed the empty calories of multisyllabic words that plod rather than gallop. And it helps to be relaxed. However, mistake drafting fast for free writing. Sometimes fast drafts can be used to capture a scene just witnessed or a dialogue just heard. That's not really a draft, but a vignette you may stick somewhere in a blog post later on.
