In my letter “Just cut stuff” I wrote about working on the copyedits of the manuscript for Don’t Call It Art, and how you don’t have to rewrite what’s not there:

Whenever I find myself snagged on a suggested edit, the first thing I ask myself is: Does this even need to be here?

I find the easiest thing to do with something that isn’t working in a piece of writing is to just cut it out completely.

In my letter “All publishing is self-publishing,” I shared my 3 tips for self-editing:

The best edi...