Introduction: What Is A Good Writer?

Many students believe that a good writer is simply born that way, or has lucked into a procedure for getting words on paper quickly and easily. This mythological "good writer" simply sits down at the typewriter or yellow legal pad and lets the ideas flow neatly onto the page, then rips the pages out of the machine, stacks them together, does a quick proof-read, turns the paper in and gets an A. The writer never re-thinks (all his ideas have cooked perfectly in his head into a gourmet masterpiece), never re-reads, never rewrites. He never struggles and he feels no pain.

Believing this myth can interfere with the facts which a good writer learns from experience and turns into habits of mind. The first fact is that writing is like living. Because it is alive, it grows, and because living things do not evolve in smooth graceful leaps, writing does not either. It struggles for form and voice, just as any human creature must, to make itself understood. Recognizing this fact can help you turn the wayward, awkward moments into meaningful connections. A good writer, first of all, thinks of writing as a process and not just as a product. From this belief come other good habits which the writer learns from writing. But keep in mind that these are habits, not character traits. You can learn them if you want to; they aren't imprinted on people from birth like finger prints or awarded to the lucky few like blue ribbons at a cattle show.