Thunder, Lightning, and Revisions—Mark Twain and Creativity
“You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God’s adjectives.” – Mark Twain, in an 1878 letter. Samuel Langhorne Clemens was many things: a steamboat pilot, a prospector, a reporter, a world traveler, a lecturer, an investor (mostly a bad one),