William Zinsser

Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this as a consolation in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things people do.

"I might add," "It should be pointed out," "It is interesting to note that" - how many sentences begin with these dreary clauses announcing what the writer is going to do next? If you might add, add it, if it should be pointed out, point it out. If it is interesting to note, make it interesting.

Clutter. That's what clutter is - "With the possible exception of" (except), "Due to the fact that" (because), "he totally lacked the ability to" (he couldn't), "until such time as" (until), "for the purpose of" (for).

The airline pilot who announces that he is presently anticipating experiencing considerable precipitation wouldn't dream of saying that it may rain. The sentence is too simple - there must be something wrong with it.

A number of wannabe writers make the same mistake. But not all, like Walden.

I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitiude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert.

The man snoozing in his chair with an unfinished magazine or book open on his lap is a man who was being given too much unneccesary trouble by the writer.

This is the problem of the writer who sets out deliberately to garnish his prose. You lose whatever it is that makes you unique. The reader will usually notice if you are putting on airs. He wanted the person who is talking to him to sound genuine.

Be yourself.

"Who am I writing for?" I'll say that, over and over. But I just can't get myself to say, "Whom am I writing for?" I don't know. It's just not me.

No rule, though, is harder to follow. It requires a writer to do two things which by his metabolism are impossible. He must relax and he must have confidence.

Telling a writer to relax is like telling a man to relax while being prodded for a possible hernia, and, as for his confidence, he is a bundle of anxieties. See how stiffly he sits, glaring at the screen that awaits his words.

A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing. Just by my newspaper days I can vouch for the number of trips made to the coffee room, or smoking zone per reporter-hour, which far exceed the amount of smoke and caffeine the human body can take. It's all just to delay the act of writing.