Writing about writing

Writer Thomas Sowell (right), author of more than thirty best-selling books and one of my very favourite quotes*, writes about writing.  It's fascinating.

From time to time, I get a letter from some aspiring young writer, asking about how to write or how to get published. My usual response is that the only way I know to become a good writer is to be a bad writer and keep on improving. However, even after you reach the point where you are writing well—and that can take many years—the battle is not over. There are still publishers to contend with. Then there are editors and, worst of all, copy-editors.

Copy-editors: those chaps who site between a writer and a reader with a blue pencil, a tin ear and a taste for "pedestrian uniformity...  Self-justifying rules and job-justifying busy work are the only visible goals of copy-editors."

Where Shakespeare wrote, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” a copy-editor would substitute: “The issue is one of existence versus non-existence.” Where Lincoln said, “Fourscore and seven years ago,” a copy-editor would change that to: “It has been 87 years since . . .” Where the Bible said, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” a copy-editor would run a blue pencil through the first three words as redundant.

Read the whole thing here [hat tip Gus Van Horn].  It's long, but delightful.
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* NB: Favourite quote follows:

Cultures are not museum pieces. They are the working machinery of everyday life. Unlike objects of aesthetic contemplation, working machinery is judged by how well it works, compared to the alternatives.

UPDATE:  Here's some recent Sowell columns you might like to browse.