I have no interest in teaching writers how to sell. I want to teach them how to write. If the process is sound, the product will take care of itself, and sales are likely to follow.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of focusing on the writing process rather than sales techniques.
William Zinsser's quote conveys the idea that the primary goal of teaching writers should be to hone their writing skills. He asserts that if writers develop a strong and effective writing process, the quality of their work will naturally attract readers and lead to sales, thereby suggesting that mastering the craft should take precedence over marketing tactics.
In practice
In a writing workshop to encourage focus on craft over commerce.
Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things that people do
Never hesitate to imitate another writer. Imitation is part of the creative process for anyone learning an art or a craft. Bach and Picasso didn't spring full-blown as Bach or Picasso; they needed models. This is especially true of writing.
Good writing is lean and confident.
My four articles of faith: clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity.
Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident. . . . Every little qualifier whittles away some fraction of the reader's trust. Readers want a writer who believes in himself and in what he is saying. Don't diminish that belief. Don't be kind of bold. Be bold.
Noise is the typographical error and the poorly designed page...Ambiguity is noise. Redundancy is noise. Misuse of words is noise. Vagueness is noise. Jargon is noise.
In our relationship with children and young people, we are not dealing with mechanical devices that can be quickly repaired, but with living beings who are impressionable, volatile, sensitive, afraid, affectionate; and to deal with them we have to have great understanding, the strength of patience and love.
Slavery is but half abolished, emancipation is but half completed, while millions of freeman with votes in their hands are left without education.
We men of study, whose heads are in our books, have need to be straightly looked after! We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.
The walls of the educational system must come down. Education should not be a privilege, so the children of those who have money can study.
I see journalists as the manual workers, the laborers of the word. Journalism can only be literature when it is passionate.
We look at science as something very elite, which only a few people can learn. That's just not true. You just have to start early and give kids a foundation. Kids live up, or down, to expectations.
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