Avi

word craft

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Re-energizing

bored boyYou are writ­ing steadi­ly, mak­ing some kind of progress. At least you are cre­at­ing pages. Going for­ward. Now it begins to feel stale, dull, devoid of ener­gy. The thought of going through your text yet again and again seems very tedious. 

Once, when work­ing on a book, and in just such a state, I called my edi­tor. “It feels like junk,” I said. He said, “I don’t pub­lish junk”—a fig­u­ra­tive slap in the face, enough to wake me up, and get me back to work.

There is anoth­er way to re-ener­gize, to wash away your author’s eyes of murky fog: read good writ­ing. Not just any writ­ing, but some­thing you admire, that the world has told you is good, that is good. 

If you are like me, you’ll be struck by a mix of envy and admi­ra­tion, but even more, an aware­ness of what is good writ­ing. It is not that you will imi­tate that good writer, but it will remind you why your work is not as good. Then when you go back to your work, it will be like that good old Eng­lish teacher you once had, lean­ing over your work, and say­ing, “You don’t need that word.” Or, “You can cut this part.”

There is no bet­ter edi­tor than a good read.

1 thought on “Re-energizing”

  1. I don’t know if it’s too late to ask, but as a huge fan of your writ­ing, I’m inter­est­ed to know a few of your favorite authors to read when you’re look­ing for inspi­ra­tion as a writer. Could you list a few? Please for­give me if you’ve done this else­where and I’ve missed it. Thank you very much!

    Reply

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