The greatest writers work with the same 26 letters, good writing is just putting one word after another

Philip Roth by Zach Trenholm

Writing is putting one letter after another letter; one word after another; one sentence after another. As Margaret Atwood said:

"A word after a word after a word is power."

George Orwell - Writing is hard, Ctd

George Orwell's1984 is the classic of classics. One of the most celebrated book in the English canon that speaks and sells powerfully to this day. Yes 1984 is a classic. Yet for Orwell, the writing of it was most testing. Early drafts were seen by Orwell as "ghastly" and "dreadful" messes. While writing 1984 in May 1947, Orwell wrote to his publisher Fred Warburg: 

"Of course the rough draft is always a ghastly mess bearing little relation to the finished result, but all the same it is the main part of the job."

Philip Larkin - 'On Being Twenty-six'

As I savour these last few minutes and moments of my 26 years in this society and make it 27, I want to share my cartoon of Philip Larkin and his poem, 'On Being Twenty-six.' In a period of change and challenge and in a time of self-doubt and crippling comparison, Larkin's word are hugely soothing and encouraging. I also want to share this as a shout out for Lyra McKee as she approaches the 26 mark and battles the precarious and uncertain forces of the freelance world. You too Lyra can take strength and guidance from a successful poet who often thought he was useless. Here it is,  Philip Larkin 'On Being Twenty-six':

I feared these present years, 
      The middle twenties, 
When deftness disappears, 
And each event is 
Freighted with a source-encrusting doubt, 
      And turned to drought. 

George Packer - Emulation and imitation is a good way to learn how to write

George Packer - New Yorker

New Yorker staff writer George Parker spoke with Christopher Hitchens in 2009 and explained how he modelled himself and his writing on the work of George Orwell:

"I needed to know how does one become a writer, and so I just read straight through what was then the only collection of George Orwell’s essays and journalism and letters… I became a slavish emulator and imitator for a while in my 20s. I think it’s a good way to learn how to write - To find a writer you feel some affinity for, and just master their prose style, their rhythms, get the cadences into your own nerve system and then try to find your own way into it." 

As I noted in an earlier post, Hunter S. Thompson did the same thing, modelled himself on great writers, and he explained how he did this on Charlie Rose:

"If you type out somebody's work, you learn a lot about it. Amazingly it's like music. And from typing out parts of Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald - these were writers that were very big in my life and the lives of the people around me - so yea I wanted to learn from the best I guess."

@Jason_A_Murdock - Writing is hard, Ctd

Editor of Northern Ireland's digital journal Off The Record, Jason Alan Murdock (@Jason_A_Murdock) guest writes on The Ideas Workshop. He joins the 'Writing is Hard' series and shares his thoughts.

Writing Is Hard

​Starting off a 'writing is hard' segment with the proclamation that the literal process itself isn't actually that difficult seems like a bit of a cop out. But bear with me. Writing is a process many learn at a young age. At its most basic it is letter after letter, word after word. But before I start to sound like the world's worst substitute teacher I will say that using these familiar words and letters in a constructive, meaningful and emotive way can be a very difficult task indeed. Many have grappled with turning words into 'art' or something resembling a legacy. Orwell, Hitchens, Salinger, Yeats, Frost – men all recognised by their surnames alone – live beyond the ashes because of their ability to craft powerful sentences. The human body can rot, but the written word lives on. It must be said however, that whether you find writing hard or not will depend on your intentions. After all, there exist many crafts that use words as a tool and some will be harder to master than others. It could be journalism, poetry, short stories, blogging, comic sketches or writing a book or novel – all demand different skills, techniques and various blood/alcohol levels.

Writing is hard, Ctd

Speak fluent human! RT “@mathewi good advice on "throat clearing," which I am kind of addicted to RT @zseward pic.twitter.com/8uY24QwT4Y”
— Brian John Spencer (@brianjohnspencr) December 17, 2013

Read Gideon Lichfield in the tweet above. See what he says about "throat clearing." Well, writing can be very hard. Perfectly hard enough to not require the extra difficulties that are of the perfectly avoidable kind. People often have the habit of coating their writing with introductory layers of fluff that mask for an introduction. According to Lichfield: avoid the throat clearing. 

My previous posts in Writing is hard series are here with Alex Massie, with Tim Kreider here, with Christopher Hitchens here, with American author Stanley Karnow here, with Ernest Hemingway here, with Neil Gaiman here, with James Joyce here, with Dan Brown here. My piece that looks at George Orwell's 6 rules to good writing is here. I also wrote a piece on The Huffington Post here.

I've also posted here about the propensity for law school to teach law students to write badly here. I made The Case For Plain English here. I've also written a few pieces, including here, on Writing on Paper as a way of making the writing process easier. Apparently blogging is an art form, see here.

Christopher Hitchens - A writer can never truly stop

Speaking on C-Span, Christopher Hitchens explained how a writer can never truly stop or switch off. For a writer is a professional without a set clock. A writer is person with a vocation who is always absorbing so that he or she can then hold a mirror up to society. A writer is above all this: a person with the responsibility to use their gift for they occupy an important role in society.

"If you’re a self-employed writer, there’s a tendency to always feel guilty anytime you’re not working, because you never quite know when you’ve stopped because you don’t have office hours or an employer."

From 22 minutes in the video above, also here. Also here.

"[Writing] is Theft"

It was Picasso who said: "art is theft." 

This quote has since evolved and spawned several permutations. Steve Jobs famously misquoted Picasso when he said, “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” T.S. Eliot said something a little closer to Picasso's original: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”

Then there's the writer Austin Kleon wrote a book entitled, Steal Like An Artist. See video below: