Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process

by John McPhee

Obvious as it had not seemed, this organizing principle gave me a sense of a nearly complete structure, and I got off the table.

“You can build a strong, sound, and artful structure.

details are individually essential, while the details collectively are absolutely essential.

I always know where I intend to end before I have much begun to write.

for the magazine for a dozen years.