A poem is a very different entity to an article, or a short story, or a novel, or screenplay, or whatever. Each form of writing benefits or detriments from editing in different ways. I believe that poetry is a more personal form of written expression than most others, and is often intentionally vague or open to interpretation.

But a good article needs to be clear and concise; it has a contention, a point to make, and should be edited to best relay that idea to the reader. To not edit an article is to undermine the argument in favour of raw emotion, which seldom comes across properly in writing (especially if unedited).

I think this philosophy you discuss here is a good one, but only in certain contexts - where the expression and emotion is more important than the clarity and cogency of the writing. In other contexts, I think it will only lead to disaster.

I make far too many spelling, grammar, and syntax errors not to edit, let alone all the other gremlins in my writing!  And if I waited until I had the sentence/paragraph/article just write before posting it, I would never complete anything. 

From my experience, I personally enjoy to edit my pieces. The shorter it is, the less editing I have to do, as my thoughts are collected and coherent and I generally write it in one.

Pieces that are longer, though, say over 2,500 words (which seems to be my maximum daily limit -- right now, at least -- before I become fatigued), often need more editing on the virtue that the mood I'm in when I'm writing on one day may not reflect the mood I'm in on the next, and the tone of the piece may take a drastic shift which, thankfully, can be remedied with a few re-drafts here and there.

Even so, I've written a few blinders in my short 23 years of existence that have required no edits whatsoever (beyond spelling and typos, of course). Sometimes the frankness of a raw, unedited piece conveys a point better than any amount of editing could achieve. In those instances, however, the first re-read of what's been written makes this abudantly clear.

And I know plenty of writers in all sorts of fields (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, journalism and even scriptwriting) and they all have different ways of doing things. Some of them do ineed never edit.

One piece of advice I will give is make sure that editing is the last process of writing a piece. Don't half complete a piece and then go and edit that before writing the second half; it really does put you off continuing the remainder of the piece. I made that mistake with my dissertation at University, and continuining from where I left off became a real uphill struggle. Write it all first, then go back.

Oh man this is going to make Jason Wilson's head explode! (Mine too, actually.)

Stop trying to murder editing.

Let's say there are two extreme characters on the writing continuum -- the meticulous word technician and the impassioned literarily flatulent.

If there is no right way to write, then any approach is valid -- including editing. I can appreciate the romantacism of an approach that demands all expression go off into the world unconsidered, 'raw' and 'real', but to imply that editing, as a process, is inherently damaging suggests that there is, in fact, a right way to write -- and, interestingly, it is a way that supports and demands the hubris of writers.

I think whatever you do to get stuff out there that you feel is honest, that you can stand behind proudly, is alright by me.

Please! Murder editing.  It's too hard sometimes.  All those darlings I don't wish to kill.  But of course I must.  Strange, isn't it, that so many axioms about writing involve death.  There's a lesson in there somewhere...

Well, thanks for all the comments.  I'm not sure I really have anymore to add... except I had a lot of fun writing this and I hope you had fun reading it!

Ryan I more or less completely agree with you. The reason why I write the way I write and the reason why I feel it's right to defend my writing with all it's flaws is pretty much summed up right here. Thanks for saying it, I really needed some sign that i'm not the only person who feels editing is placed on too high a pedestol and is getting in the way of the emotion and purpose in people's writing.

Just saying: if you kill editing, then you'll kill me. D: Organizing semi-colons, periods, etc., and double-checking spelling and consistency in articles is how I make my living. Plus, I find editing incredibly fun (so it's good I have a job in it, right? ^^). The book "Eats Shoots and Leaves" totally speaks my language, and an AP Stylebook is never far from my reach. Like Damien and Jason, a world without editing would probably make my head explode.

Even the most brilliant writers benefit from editing, and having an outside opinion on your work can really enrich an article. That's why I love having my friends read my work before I publish.

Quick story: Hunter S. Thompson used to send stories hours before deadline so that they couldn't be properly edited, often ripped directly from notes with illegible handwriting.  However, that was possible because his writing style is literally one of a kind and is as much a part of the attraction as the actual topic. Until your style reaches that level I wouldn't denounce any part of the writing process.  

I don't think he's belaboring the process of making the writing more consistent with proper puncuation and some grammar tweaks. When I see people bashing editing I mostly see it as them taking a knife to it to make it more brief or demanding something be rewritten to be 'easier for the reader' No one doesn't think that writers could benefit from cleaning up a rough draft. It's just some of the more dicey decisions about style and content that editors sometimes make that writers often lash back against.

I think that learning how to deal with editors is an essential part of ever becoming a successful writer. The writers who don't require editing are so few and far between that they aren't a model for replication. Either someone is that person or they are not..and it's far more likely that they are not. If so, and this person skips the editing process, their copy is not going to be nearly as crisp and tight as it needs to be to stand out from the other hundreds of thousands of would-be writers out there.

I personally love editors. I always want another pair of eyes on anything I write. The trick comes with substantive editing, when an editor changes the meaning or tone of a piece through their edits. That can be irksome, and why a writer needs a relationship with his or her editor to prevent this taking place - but sometimes editors do this because they aren't clear about what the writer was trying to say and so try to "interpret" the piece. That's just a cue to the writer to be more clear in the future.

I think Chris summed it up perfectly: If you are a great writer, regardless of style, then someone will eventually read your work and not care how bad the grammar is. Hunter S. Thompson hated being edited, but he was a also a very talented writer who could express his ideas very well. Kurt Vonnegut is another that hated being edited.

There is such a fine line between unreadable crap and unique prose. 

I think editing is fun, perhaps even more so than writing. It's almost like a puzzle, in which you have to figure out the best way to make your words and sentences fit together.

I like stream of consciousness writing, and I can see when a "no editing" approach might be useful. But I think that "no editing" philosophy is mostly relegated to literature, poems, etc.

There are different techniques to use depending on what you are writing. When I write an article for Bitmob, I want it to be concise and follow a logical path. That way, my audience (Hi grandma!) can follow my thought processes easily.

Now, if I wanted to write a piece of fiction, I might opt for a free-form style. But I think even a free-form style takes a lot of effort on the part of the writer.

The point is that I think writers always have to be meticulous when writing, no matter what kind of style it is. Some of William Faulkner's sentences make it look like he just wrote down whatever came to mind, but I'm sure he carefully considered every word and punctuation mark (or lack there of) when he was writing.

I'd come across as a sloppy drunken tween if I didn't edit my stuff. My style of writing sometimes includes a good paragraph of words that might make sentences if they tried. If I didn't edit those out nothing would make sense... This arguement could work for tweets though

As with most things, the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. I personally don't do much post-writing editing, instead analyzing my word choices and ideas as I go. Sometimes that raw stream of conciousness is exactly what you need. Sometimes though, a little tweaking can polish a good idea into a great one. 

I also highly doubt Ryan here is discouraging editing for spelling, grammar, and syntax. It can never hurt to make your writing understandable. And a little fact checking can go a long way. I think what Ryan is going for is that you don't want to dillute what you are trying to say with a lot of over analyzation.

As a side note, I find it funny how many of these comments have spelling and grammar mistakes in them, from people on both sides of the editing fence.

that really made me laugh Jason!  

I'm glad you laughed. Now I lay down the law: If you want to be taken seriously, you must ALWAYS edit your written word (and it helps if you have an editor edit your work as well). Editing allows you to develop your thoughts, back up your arguments, make sure you mean what you say, and ensure that you're saying it with accuracy and clarity. And the "death poem" can receive editing -- that's what editors do.

@Jason - that made me laugh again

As a general reply to a lot of the comments, I want to say that over time your writing will get better.  If you don't edit, and trust yourself... trust your voice, you'll start to be able to write articles, poems, short stories, etc. in one shot and have it be good.  

Try it out!  What have you got to lose?  There's only one rule - whatever you write, you have to post... you can't read it, decide it's not any good, and throw it out.  There's something about posting it that's liberating.