Sublime

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

The great American novelist Elmore Leonard summed this up nicely when he said, ‘If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.’