I edited her revised version, and she revised it again. By the time the article had gone through four iterations, it was clear, relevant, concise, scannable, consistent, and accurate. I suspect it was the most arduous 250 words Christine had ever written, but she had an excellent article to show for it. And so, though it was possibly the finest piece Christine had ever written, it never got published. For a veteran copywriter, it was all in a day's work, but Christine was irate.
Writing is never a waste of time.
Every minute you spent on that article made you a tighter writer. Two weeks ago, I attended the CHI 2001 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. I'd attended one of his seminars, read his book, talked about him in an article, and exchanged a few emails with him, but I'd never met him. I moved up to his row and sat three seats away. As the panel started, I pulled out a business card and began writing a note to him to introduce myself.