That is, first they write and then they pause a minute to check what they have written. In that moment of pause they do something specific, something on which the whole art of the craft depends. Some nonphysical part of them reaches out and touches the work, feels it, to see if what they have done is right, is congruent. It senses the meanings in t

Broadly, good writing seems to require a balance of conformity and nonconformity, and at times, deliberate rule-breaking. A certain amount of Strunk and White-style convention is necessary to convey ideas coherently — after all, language is a shared system of meaning, and straying too far from its rules risks losing connection with readers or becom

Good writers of prose must be part poet, always listening to what they write.