On Keeping Drafts

My grandmother kept every letter she ever started and did not send. There were more of those than the ones she posted. When we cleared her house we found them in a biscuit tin, each one folded once, each one ending mid-sentence.

I think about that tin whenever a writing app tells me my work has been saved. Saved from what? The previous version is gone. The sentence I wrote at 2 a.m. and deleted at 9 a.m. is gone. The app has kept the essay and thrown away the thinking.

The map, not the territory

A draft is not a worse version of the finished piece. It is a record of a route. When I reread old drafts I can see exactly where I lost my nerve, where I found a better word, where I cut a paragraph because someone I love would recognise themselves in it.

That record is useful. It is also private, and it should stay that way unless I choose otherwise.

What I want from a tool

• Every version kept, quietly, without my asking.
• The ability to go back without losing what came after.
• No one else able to read any of it until I press a button that says, in plain words, publish.

That is not a lot to ask. It is, apparently, rare.