THE ANCIENT ROMAN POET HORACE advised aspiring writers to get distance from their work by putting it away for nine years. Although impractical, to say the least, Horace’s advice holds a nugget of truth: putting your draft aside even for a short while will help clear your mind and give you more objectivity about your writing.

Make time to review and reflect on your work (by yourself or with others) and to revise, edit, and proofread. Reviewing calls for reading your draft with a critical eye and asking others to look over your work. Revising involves reworking your draft on the basis of the review, making sure that the draft is clear, effective, complete, and well organized. Editing involves fine-tuning, attending to all the details. Of course, you also need to format and proofread your writing carefully to make it completely ready for public presentation.