Writing Process

The book's claim that it is one of the best resources from the best people is largely true. Sometimes simple looking ideas are really very important. This is true about the essays in the first part of the book. All of them deal with the idea of the process of writing from different angles or perspectives.
What I found interesting is the focus of almost all of the writers on the importance of "revision" in writing process. Normally many people submit their writings without going through it twice. If they do revision it is just nothing more than proofreading. But in all the essays here, the writers have given more importance to revision than "writing." Adelstein's division of time for the different elements of writing process clearly demonstrates this idea:
1. Worrying -- 15%
2. Planning -- 10%
3. Writing -- 25%
4. Revising -- 45%
5. Proofreading -- 5%
(Re)Thinking (worrying, planning, ...) prior to the actual writing and thinking after it (revising, proofreading) require more than 75% of the time. Thinking gives proper shape to the writing where as revising reshuffles it to adjust to the broader (global) rhetorical needs and local mechanical considerations.
"Revision is painful: removing pet phrases and savory sentences is like getting rid of rherished possessions" (17). But the end product after this painful process is quite satisfying. The fact that one of the best prose writers of the 20th century,Hemingway revised "the last page of A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times before he was satisfied" clearly shows how important it is.
I agree with Adelstein's idea that we need to be both the writer and a critic. We need to distance ourselves from our writing so that we can see the mistakes and improve it. If we see our own reading from the reader's perspective, we can make several changes to the rhetorical choices we have made to suit to the needs of the audience, which marks the successful writing. Elbow also supports this by dividing the total available time into two halves for writing and revising.