Good afternoon. And we are on technique three of strategy eight habits. Technique three states discover what you need to say, through your writing. Discover what you need to say through your writing. A lot of people that have been immersed in writing for years know this. And it seems kind of obvious in a sense to, but in high school, most students are taught that they need to write a paper about something, they sit down to write it, and then Okay, I'm done.

I just need to go back and edit a few grammar errors, and I'm done. But that is a big misconception. And almost all my students are conditioned that way. And so what I have to teach them is that writing is a process and that you don't discover or think about what you want to say, and then write it even though that's partly true, but that even more importantly, you have to discover what you need to say through your writing process, meaning have the misconception That you discover what you need to say and then write. But writing a draft helps you discover what you need to say, use the first draft as a discovery process, you probably know that you've written things and you're like Ching, aha, Eureka, I get it. And things come out and you're like, this is good.

This is a great idea. So you're figuring it out as you're writing that. And then future drafts will help you to articulate what you learn. And that's why multiple drafts are so important. I can't think of very many exceptions to the need for multiple drafts. There's always that rare piece or poem that comes out almost perfect the first time you tweak it a little bit, it's done.

But that's extremely rare, at least from my experience from my students, from my experience as a writer as well, but that's extremely rare. And so let that first draft, and this could be after you've done your initial free writing, if you choose to do that, or brainstorming and then you just drink raft however you do that the first time, let that be what's called a discovery draft. And then your future drafts will help you to continue to discover other things you need to say. And it also, you'll start tweaking and start refining and some of the lighter drafts. So a strategy for doing this, if it's helpful, free, write on your topic and outline to generate ideas first, and then write a discovery draft second, to allow your mind to explore what needs to be said. Next, write as many later drafts as needed to articulate, refine and further clarify what needs to be said.

Even later drafts can be discovery drafts, and keep in mind that you may go back and forth through the scale or the sequence of things. It's not 123 you might overlap some of this you might free right after your first or your second draft, whatever works do that there's not a specific order where all of this has to go. Often though, the best thing Work comes from the unconscious and seems to write itself. And we've all probably had that experience if we've done any significant writing as well. Lastly, revise once you have done multiple drafts, several drafts are almost always necessary for work to reach its full potential. This is why routers use revision, our E dash V is in, it means literally to vision, again, to picture it, again to look at it from a different light, what needs to be said.

And so just remember to discover what you need to say through the writing through that first draft. And remember that writing isn't a finished product. It is but it's never completely done. We all probably know this as well. But keep in mind that it's a process and it's ongoing and it continues to improve just like life. None of us are perfect.

We make mistakes. We do stupid and dumb things. We've all done that. I know I have and having that experience, then you go into something the next time in a similar situation in light of that, and you know some things that you didn't know before. And that's what that discovery draft. That's the gift that it gives you.

And that's why it's so important to know that writing is a process just like life he has. And so it's a journey, not a destination. So discover what you need to say through your writing.