Over the holidays, I finished my first ever complete draft of a book. I felt good. I felt accomplished. I felt like a god. Maybe not quite. But eventually, the comments came back from my boyfriend-cum-editor and then, I felt not so good. Nobody told me that the pain of revision is much greater than the joy of finishing the first draft.

The art of the revision is more complicated than anything a mere checklist can address, but a revision checklist can stand between a mediocre piece of writing and an improved one. (via Angle on Writing.)