“Composition is a discipline; it forces us to think.
If you want to ‘get in touch with your feelings,’ fine — talk to yourself; we all do.
But, if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts.
Put them in order; give them a purpose; use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce.
The secret way to do this is to write it down and then cut out the confusing parts.”
That’s one of the best quotes about the craft of writing that I’ve ever read, particularly that deceptively simple final line. But then, it’s always the simple stuff that trips us up when we think we’ve got it covered…
