Rivka, I've commented in the main post about how much I liked the piece, but I had a couple of other, deeper questions, which seem more suited to the forum. Which means I get a chance to use this spanky, almost unused, forum!

First, I was wondering how much research you put into a piece of writing like this – most especially on a Monday deadline – and how much of it is stuff that you already knew.

Also, it's interesting to see how much one writer chooses to leave in that another might edit. Elephant Words isn't, I've discovered myself, an easy discipline to find room for major redrafting, but of course that isn't the only reason why one writer might make deeper cuts for brevity than another… there are modes and styles of writing that favour detailed and rich writing.

So I guess if I were to frame that last observation as a question: Is a piece of Rivka Jacobs writing, with a more comfortable deadline, as typically ornate and detailed as this one – do you draft and redraft before posting – or with time would you slice and slice again? I'm interested in process – I find your pieces easy to read even at the length that they are, so the longer-form style works perfectly, but I'm wondering if it's a style that the format of the site demands or one that you'd aim for with all the time in the world?

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