The second draft is a walk

I write first drafts at the kitchen table, fast and badly, in the hour before anyone else in the building is awake. Then I print them, fold them into my coat, and walk.

The second draft happens on foot. I read a paragraph at a bench in the Jardim da Estrela, and a sentence that looked fine at the table suddenly sounds like a press release. I cross it out with a pencil. I read the next one out loud, quietly, to the pigeons, and hear where it runs out of breath.

Why walking works

Walking changes the distance between me and the page. At the table I am the writer, defending every word. On the bench I am a reader who has somewhere else to be, and readers are ruthless in the best way.

There is also the rhythm. A good sentence has a gait. You can feel, after a few kilometres, whether a paragraph walks or stumbles.

By the time I am home the pages are soft from folding and covered in pencil. Typing up those notes is the third draft, and usually the last.

Lena · 14 June 2026, Lisbon