Improve Your Writing
Whoever believes their writing can’t be improved probably isn’t a writer
Note that this article will be added to as I go, so check back periodically!
When I began my undergrad degree in history, I’d been out of school and working for a few years. I hadn’t written much and so was a little concerned. One of the first courses I took was a 100 level general history course. While doing that, I came across something Michael Angelo was supposed to have said about sculpting that resonated with me deeply, to paraphrase —
The sculpture is already in the stone. All I do is release it.
That had a profound effect on how I edited my work. The first draft to me was the stone, and I was the sculptor. What I wanted to say was in the draft, but it was my job to release it. I still imagine letters falling to the floor as I strike my editorial hammer on my metaphoric stone, and it brings me a great deal of pleasure to see the editing process this way.
On Going Viral
Many people talk about this, and as writer with one story now over $1200, I’m not sure how it happens. That story was about Ashley Madison profiles and message, I delivered a cutting visceral dissection of what most of the men wrote, mostly man-bashed the whole way through, and it…
