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How to Begin
Students often feel guilty about modeling their writing on someone else’s writing. They think it’s unethical—which is commendable. Or they’re afraid they’ll lose their own identity. The point, however, is that we eventually move beyond our models; we take what we need and then we shed those skins and become who we are supposed to become. But nobody
... See moreWilliam Zinsser • Writing to Learn: How to Write - and Think - Clearly About Any Subject at All
Read promiscuously. Imitate, copy, but become your own voice. Write about that which you want to know. Better still, write toward that which you don’t know. The best work comes from outside yourself. Only then will it reach within.
Colum McCann • Letters to a Young Writer
Surely if I assailed my students with my sacred principles of clarity and simplicity and brevity, if I exhorted them to use active verbs and short words and short sentences, if I pointed out the pitfalls that await the writer of a travel piece or a sports piece or an interview, they would go and do what I had told them to do. No such transfer takes
... See moreWilliam Zinsser • Writing to Learn: How to Write - and Think - Clearly About Any Subject at All
Creativity Begins with Copying.