The way to do a piece of writing is three or four times over, never once. For me, the hardest part comes first, getting some-thing--anything--out in front of me. Sometimes in a nervous frenzy I just fling words as if I were flinging mud at a wall. Blurt out, heave out, babble out something--anything-as a first draft. With that, you have acf>ieved a sort of nucleus. Then, as you work it over and alter it, you begin to shape sentences that score higher with the ear and eye. Edit it again-top to bottom. The chances are that about now you'll be see-ing something that you are sort of eager for others to see. And all that takes time. What I have left out is the interstitial time. You finish that first awful blurt-ing, and then you put the thing aside. You get in your car and drive home. On the way, your mind is still knitting at the words. You think of a better way to say something, a good phrase to correct a . certain problem. Without the drafted version-if it did not exist-you obvi-ously would not be thinking of things that would improve it. In short, you may be actually writing only two or three hours a day, but your mind, in one way or another, is working on it twenty-four hours a day-yes, while you sleep-but only if some sort of draft or earlier ver-sion already exists. Until it exists, writ-ing has not really begun."
Some solid advice not only for writing, but even thinking in general. Writing out your thoughts can help to sharpen and improve them.