Whenever writers try to get anything published, they encounter editors. By that time, they should have already been editing it themselves. Writers and editors have a complicated relationship. I’ll share some quotations in a bit. On the bright side, editors will catch that glaring error writers have missed in a dozen sessions of proofreading. That is, of course, in the case of writers who actually proofread before sending something off. I’m thinking of one particularly embarrassing error of fact I notice in print that I wish the editor had noticed earlier. But editors have also found spelling errors and instances where I apparently tried to rewrite a sentence and got distracted, never to notice again. English has weird spelling, but it also generally has one and only one correct spelling of a word. Punctuation, on the other hand, has various principles about which people disagree. Sometimes passionately. If a writer who hates a lot of commas works with an editor who loves to add commas, they might come to blows. Maybe literally.

You’ve seen all the sitcoms where someone decides to write a book—or a paper for school—and spends the whole show doing anything else besides writing. They’re funny. They’re true, too. A friend of mine told me about a time he isolated himself away from all distractions. Or so he thought. He saw his face in a mirror and got this urge to trim his beard. But the only tool at hand was his nail clipper! Oh well, he finished his work (a musical composition in this case) another time. Some writers of words write novels or plays or poems. Some writers write journalistic pieces. Others write advertising copy. Whatever it is they write for a living, they have to correspond with editors or collaborators. They write letters to friends and lovers––all the same kinds of things all the rest of us write. Somewhere in all that, they write about writing. They describe their joys and fears and self-doubts. And when they publish their thoughts—or someone else does—they leave behind quotes about writing. You’re a writer, even if you never get a byline in a publication. And sometimes you have trouble getting started, or trouble finishing. Here are some motivational quotes … Continue reading →