No, good writing is not easy but it’s delightful to the heart once you master it. (image from quotefancy.com)
I’m talking this time
to would-be writers, or would-be better writers – you have to be a good reader
first before you can be a good writer. That’s based on my wide,documented experience
of 50 years, 1975-1980, from being writer & Editor
In Chief (yes, instantly) of the 4 publications of Forest Research Institute (FORI); yes,
all of them were my brainchildren: 3 FORI publications: monthly newsletter Canopy, quarterly technical journal Sylvatrop, and 1 quarterly color
magazine Habitat. Note: All those 4
printed media, as The Editor In Chief, I made appear in 1975, or 50 years ago –
that’s half a century! (Yes, FORI Director Filiberto
S Pollisco approved them all.) Those were pre-Internet years.
Special Note: I did not
study journalism or any related course – writing came naturally to me, promdi, from
the pronvince! (A clue: My mind was full. In my hometown Asingan, Pangasinan, at
the Rizal Junior College (RJC)
high school department, with its free library, I became an avid reader of books
– in the 1960s yet. When you are a wide reader, your world is wide, very wide.
You really want to be
a writer? Then you really have to be an indefatigable writer and rewriter!
Yes:
Writing is first writing, then reading, then writing, then rewriting.
If you want to be the
best you can be, you have to rewrite. Even today, I the “Outstanding Alumnus for Creative Writing”
for the UP
Los Baños College of Agriculture (UPCA) in the 1980s (and the
one-and-only so far), I always have to rewrite; you always have to rewrite. Whether
you are an accomplished writer or an apprentice, you always have to rewrite.
And yes – you have to
read. You have to learn from the well-known ones in history. In high school, in
Asingan, Pangasinan, I was an indefatigable writer. Here is a short list of
whose writings I loved to read, no need to be told: Emily Dickinson, William
Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, William Shakespeare, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Walt
Whitman …
You have
to encourage yourself too!
How about religion? I
am a Roman Catholic – does the
hierarchy, from the priests to the Pope, encourage writing? Not that I know. (For
me, I do not wish to write to show that Catholics serve God better than
non-Catholics – Pride is a sin!)@517
So? Try and try until
you succeed! (I cannot emphasize this enough.)
Having just
celebrated my 85th birthday Wednesday, Sept 17 (I ask to live to 117,
Lord), I pledge to teach anyone
who wishes to enjoy her/his writing for the public good – avoiding negatives
against specific people left or right. You can disagree but don’t be
disagreeable!
Why have I not mentioned “Learn
how to think”? Because if you learn how to search for more info or opinion, to rewrite,
you will surely learn to think more! So? Think more!@517
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