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Insight

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Great writers rely on effort and insight, but different authors use different ratios of each - maybe that's what makes them such a diverse and illuminating group. The insight of Emily Bronte would have been of no benefit to readers had she not gone to the trouble of writing her imaginative thoughts down as novels and poems. But first, she had to have the ideas and this is where 'insight' comes in.

What is "insight?" One definition reads:

"the act or outcome of grasping the inward or hidden nature of things or of perceiving in an intuitive manner"

(thefreedictionary.com)

This definition chimes with my own reflections that investing the effort of writing twenty four hours a day for a seven days in one week may not produce either a great article or aid in the development of a great writer. In other words all the effort in the world might be useless if the writing is boring, uninformative, illegible, grammatically incorrect, incoherent or misleading.

A great writer usually engages both insight and effort but it is the question of the ratio which interests us here. Let us take an example. I do not think anyone would deny that Emily Bronte, author of Wuthering Heights, was a great writer. Inspiration, insight, imagination she certainly had. But effort? She had to submit to the discipline of committing herself to writing regularly in order to get the chapters of her novel written.

She wrote "Wuthering Heights" a little at a time, as a hobby, part-time and to earn a little extra money - like most of the rest of us struggling and aspiring writers. She did not lock herself up 24/7 in her room laboriously hunched over a little writing desk, burning the midnight oil. No, she wrote it mostly, with her sisters, gathered around the family dining table.

Her sisters were busy writing too. They had fun. They read their excerpts to each other. They laughed and made suggestions. (We call it feedback!) They even went for walks around the room, linked arm in arm. This was not work to them. It was entertainment - they had no television or computer or music player in the evenings. These activities were liberating for their minds, their insight and their imaginations. Too much effort can have the opposite effect - it can be stultifying and impoverishing to the mind which may be locked out of society and starved of stimulation and original thought.

The girls also continued on with their normal lives, each taking her share of the chores required to contribute to the running of their crowded

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