by Rick Bavera

Created on: March 13, 2009   Last Updated: June 19, 2010

On Writers and Writing

Being a voracious reader can engender an enjoyment of writing as well. One can decide to share thoughts, experiences, stories, and maybe even "imitate" one's favorite writer.

One good idea to use, whether you are "just" a reader, or a reader and a writer, is to keep a notebook of memorable thoughts, ideas and stories from your reading. They can give you inspiration for daily life or for writing.

Some of the items this author has found and valued over the years concerning writers and writing appear below.

"Nothing seems so foolish as to go on writing merely because people expect you to write." -Thomas Merton

(Comment: The most enjoyable and best writing has been done when the author wanted to be doing it, and had something to say. Doing it because of obligation or someone else's desire is often not a joy.)

"Nothing so improves the style [of writing] as having something to say." -Joseph Epstein, writing as "Aristides" in The American Scholar

(This one agrees with what is stated above.)

Here is another that touches on writing style, and being yourself in your writing:

"Young writers often suppose that style is a garnish for the meat of prose, a sauce by which a dull dish is made palatable. Style is no such separate entity; it is nondetachable, unfilterable. The beginner should approach style warily, realizing that it is himself he is approaching, no other; and he should begin by turning resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style-all mannerisms, tricks, adornments. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity." -E.B. White, in The Elements of Style

"Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon?" -Annie Dillard in The Writing Life

(Comment: Life is a terminal condition. What do we want to die leaving unsaid, what do we want to make sure that we have said?)

"I count myself one of the number of those who write as they learn and learn as they write." -Augustine, quoted in Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.

"There are two kinds of writers: smart ones and dumb ones. The smart kind write what they know. The dumb kind write in order to know. I am one of the dumb ones." -Lewis B. Smedes in Theology, News and Notes

(These are expressing the same thought

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