Motivation clears the head faster than a nasal spray.

There are all kinds of writers and all kinds of methods, and any method that helps you to say what you want to say is the right method for you.

Writing is thinking on paper.

Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Proceed with confidence, generating it, if necessary, by pure willpower. Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.

But nothing has replaced the writer. He or she is still stuck with the same old job of saying something that other people will want to read.

Nobody told all the new e-mail writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they are writing with ease and enjoyment doesn't mean they are writing well.

Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it's where the game is won or lost. The idea is hard to accept. We all have emotional equity in our first draft; we can't believe that it wasn't born perfect. But the odds are close to 100 percent that it wasn't.