Draft No. 4

“a no-nonsense-mustache,”

Creative nonfiction is not making something up but making the most of what you have.

I stopped there as routinely as an animal at a salt lick.

He had an alert look and manner; short, graying dark hair; a clear gaze, no hint of guile—an appealing, trusting guy.

He said, “It takes as long as it takes.” As a writing teacher, I have repeated that statement to two generations of students. If they are writers, they will never forget it.

you may be actually writing only two or three hours a day, but your mind, in one way or another, is working on it twenty-four hours a day—yes, while you sleep—but only if some sort of draft or earlier version already exists. Until it exists, writing has not really begun.”

Writing is a matter strictly of developing oneself. You compete only with yourself. You develop yourself by writing. An editor’s goal is to help writers make the most of the patterns that are unique about them. There are people who superimpose their own patterns on the work of writers and seem to think it is their role to force things in the direct

I would go so far as to suggest that you should always write your lead (redoing it and polishing it until you are satisfied that it will serve) before you go at the big pile of raw material and sort it into a structure. O.K.

I have often heard writers say that if you have written your lead you have in a sense written half of your story. Finding a good lead can require that much time, anyway—through trial and error. You can start almost anywhere. Several possibilities will occur to you. Which one are you going to choose? It is easier to say what not to choose. A lead sh