Von Neumann could deliver publishable text, and even mathematical proofs, on the first draft. “I write rather freely and fast if a subject is ‘mature’ in my mind,” he explained in 1945, apologizing for an undelivered manuscript, “but develop the worst traits of pedantism and inefficiency if I attempt to give a preliminary account of a subject which I do not have yet in what I can believe to be in its final form.”
