I Think Poets Are Much More Dramatic,

Too Often Students Are Being Taught To Read As If Literature Were Some Kind Of Ethics Class Or Civics Class—or Worse, Some Kind Of Self-help Manual. In Fact, The Important Thing Is The Way The Writer Uses The Language.

What’s Strange Is How Many Beginning Writers Seem To Think That Grammar Is Irrelevant, Or That They Are Somehow Above Or Beyond This Subject More Fit For A Schoolchild Than The Future Author Of Great Literature.

I Wrote About Four Novels Before I Wrote A Word Of Journalism.

With So Much Reading Ahead Of You, The Temptation Might Be To Speed Up. But In Fact It’s Essential To Slow Down And Read Every Word. Because One Important Thing That Can Be Learned By Reading Slowly Is The Seemingly Obvious But Oddly Underappreciated Fact That Language Is The Medium We Use In Much The Same Way A Composer Uses Notes, The Way A Painter Uses Paint. I Realize It May Seem Obvious, But It’s Surprising How Easily We Lose Sight Of The Fact That Words Are The Raw Material Out Of Which Literature Is Crafted.

If We Want To Write, It Makes Sense To Read—and To Read Like A Writer. If We Wanted To Grow Roses, We Would Want To Visit Rose Gardens And Try To See Them The Way That A Rose Gardener Would.