The drafts you never see

Every month, I do the first draft of my personal newsletter a week before publishing. Yet, I rarely figure it out until the day it goes out. I end up with multiple versions that will never see the light of day.

That doesn't mean all that work is worthless. I needed to go through all those drafts to figure out what didn't work until I found the one that did.

Not all writing goes this way—most of my other stuff doesn't feel this laboured. But doing the extra work to get to the good stuff is how you slowly improve.