Censoriously Good
» S.D. Smith

This is basically my “life verse” right now as a writer. -sam

“The most valid form of censorship is that practiced by writers upon themselves. Scrupulously revising or destroying all writing that fails to let readers vanish into the life of their language is every author’s duty. What we are morally obligated to censor from our work…is our own incompetence.…”

David James Duncan

HT: Abraham Piper

This entry was posted on Monday, July 19th, 2010 at 6:00 am and is filed under Quotations from My Betters, Writing on Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Censoriously Good”

• JJ Says:
  July 19th, 2010 at 10:25 am

  “Incompentence” could be replaced with “crap”. I hope to spare any readers I have from reading crap.
• S.D. Smith Says:
  July 19th, 2010 at 4:31 pm

  http://www.sdsmith.net/2010/06/28/madeleine-lengle-you-are-not-qualified-perfect/

  Come on, JJ! Maybe you’re right. Maybe not.

  I have a hunch it’s better than you think.
• JJ Says:
  July 20th, 2010 at 9:52 am

  Thanks Sam. I don’t think my writing is crap, but I don’t think it’s amazing. I mean I did write my two novels in a span of 30 days each.

  I tend to break one of the big rules of Nanowrimo: Don’t edit! I read and reread portions over and over again, change words, remove sentences. I want it to make sense and not sound stupid. Probably a good habit to be in as a “writer”.

  I love that L’Engle post!

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