What is writing?

Half, maybe most, of writing is finding faults in one’s own writing, and fixing them, until one finds nothing more to fix. It is an immersion in one’s own flaws, and a constant, unyielding effort to ameliorate them.

— end of initial entry —

Paul K. writes:

My father, who wrote for professional journals, used to say, “I don’t like writing as much as rewriting.” I agree with that. Once a draft has taken shape, it’s very satisfying to go over and over it, each time improving sentence structure or replacing a word with one that is more apt. Unfortunately, email communication doesn’t allow much time for that process. One of the things that has always impressed me about you is your ability to produce such high quality prose at short notice.

P.S. I’m glad you posted that some of your correspondents were tiring you out by being overly-solicitous or sending too much material.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 18, 2013 08:28 AM | Send