Remember, it is no sign of weakness or defeat that your manuscript ends up in need of major surgery. This is a common occurrence in all writing, and among the best writers.
Interpretation
Revising your work is a normal part of writing and not a reflection of failure.
This quote emphasizes that needing to make significant changes to a manuscript is a common experience for writers, even the most successful ones. It serves to remind writers that editing is an essential part of the creative process and should not be seen as a failure or weakness, but rather as a step toward improvement and refinement of their work.
In practice
During a writing workshop, to encourage participants to embrace editing.
The surest way to arouse and hold the attention of the reader is by being specific, definitive, and concrete. The greatest writers - Homer, Dante, Shakespeare - are effective largely because they deal in particulars and report the details that matter. Their words call up pictures.
Instead of announcing what you are about to tell is interesting, make it so.
The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity.
Make definite assertions. Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating, non-committal language.
Avoid fancy words....If you admire fancy words, if every sky is beauteous, every blonde curvaceous, every intelligent child prodigious, if you are tickled by discombobulate, you will have bad time Reminder 14.
Rather, very, little, pretty - these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words. The constant use of the adjective little (except to indicate size) is particularly debilitating; we should all try to do a little better, we should all be very watchful of this rule, for it is a rather important one, and we are pretty sure to violate it now and then.
See that your children be taught, not only the labors of the earth, but the loveliness of it.
Schools are designed on the assumption that there is a secret to everything in life; that the quality of life depends upon knowing that secret; that secrets can only be known in orderly successions; and that only teachers can properly reveal these secrets. An individual with a schooled mind conceives of the world as a pyramid of classified packages accessible only to those who carry the proper tags.
I learn something new every game. Every game is always different, no matter how you try and think about it beforehand.
We still raise girls to look to other people for assurance they are attractive and smart, while boys are raised to determine their own value. Many girls are still made to feel it's not feminine to be good at science or math.
Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.
What enriches language is its being handled and exploited by beautiful minds-not so much by making innovations as by expanding it through more vigorous and varied applications, by extending it and deploying it. It is not words that they contribute: what they do is enrich their words, deepen their meanings and tie down their usage; they teach it unaccustomed rhythms, prudently though and with ingenuity.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.