Fact-checking Is So Boring Compared To Writing

If We Want To Write, It Makes Sense To Read—and To Read Like A Writer. If We Wanted To Grow Roses, We Would Want To Visit Rose Gardens And Try To See Them The Way That A Rose Gardener Would.

Every Page Was Once A Blank Page, Just As Every Word That Appears On It Now Was Not Always There, But Instead Reflects The Final Result Of Countless Large And Small Deliberations. All The Elements Of Good Writing Depend On The Writer's Skill In Choosing One Word Instead Of Another. And What Grabs And Keeps Our Interest Has Everything To Do With Those Choices.

But Beneath It All Will Run That Sicilian Understanding That The Underside Of Joy Is Grief, That The Face Of Sacrifice And Suffering Is The Dark Mirror Image Of Pleasure And Enjoyment, That Every Moment Of Arrival Is To Be Treasured And Enjoyed In The Full Knowledge That It Has Brought Us A Moment Closer To The Moment Of Departure.

There Are Many Occasions In Literature In Which Telling Is Far More Effective Than Showing.

What’s Strange Is How Many Beginning Writers Seem To Think That Grammar Is Irrelevant, Or That They Are Somehow Above Or Beyond This Subject More Fit For A Schoolchild Than The Future Author Of Great Literature.