One thing you learn as a writer, the rough draft is part and parcel of the final version. You can refine and polish and chop out old bits, add in new bits, chop out bits of that, and add back in bits of the old cut bits, and you can correct your spelling; but the final version is just a refined version of that first rough draft. It is a better looking, well-polished version of what you started with but it is not something entirely different.
Someone recently told me that I should realize that what I heard from her was not always true because when she talked to me it was "just a rough draft" and she was speaking her own "emotional truths." This is how it happens that she is not a liar for saying what she said, but I am a liar for believing her. I'm sorry, but if you say "this is what happened" I'm going to think you meant to say that is what happened. I'm going to think that the seventh time you tell me someone said something you really do mean they actually said it. And I'm going to know that if you begin with a lie for your rough draft, the final story might be quite convincing but it is simply a polished lie.
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