“What I find hard about writing,” Nora Ephron said, “is the writing.”

There’s a difference between writing and typing. Writers produce. Typists reproduce. Okay, that’s a bit harsh. Writers believe that a story worth telling is worth telling well. Writers believe that a turn of phrase can invoke a vision, that the choice of exactly the right word will lead someone to think about something in a new light, will persuade, will entertain. Some writers are blessed with a combination of neurons, synapses, left brain cells (or is it right?) that make their words flow onto the page or screen with clarity and purpose. The other ninety-nine percent of us must draft, erase, revise, delete, change, correct, and revisit, so that in the end, after many drafts and rewritings, it looks like it wasn’t hard.

We want to be writers. Where to begin?

 

This article was originally published on WritingForward.com. Read the full article here.

 

See more writing

A Novel Approach: Number 24 Research and Accuracy in Historical Fiction — In Exquisitio Veritas

A Novel Approach

Part One: Readers with some passing knowledge of literature might be startled by reading in The Three Musketeers a...

CONTINUE READING →

A Novel Approach Number 21 ‘Elementary, my dear…’

A Novel Approach

Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon and Paris policewoman Sophie Neveu overcame one obstacle after the other in a never- ending...

CONTINUE READING →

Bloom,

On the Nightstand

In yet another twist to my highly acclaimed series of book reviews, I give you not a book but...

CONTINUE READING →