Re: OT: Books on writing?

[flash flash@xxxxxxxx]

≪people who write professionally get plenty of on-the-job training by
the editing that they themselves do of their own drafts.≫

A man who defends himself in court has a fool for a client.

There is editing and there is self-editing. In my opinion, a writer who
edits his own work is missing an important part of the process.
Doubtless an astute writer gets better the more his work is edited by
competant editors, and at some point very little editing should be
necessary. But that is a long ways down the road. A writer who starts
out thinking his purple prose is self-editable is headed for vanity
publishing.

Someone once said that you don't understand something until you can
explain it to someone else. The limitation of self-editing is that so
long as you are still explaining it only to yourself, you may think you
have explained it well, but only because you already think you
understand it. When you hear what someone else has understood of it
based on what you've written, then you see where you've chosen the right
words and where you haven't. And that's what an editor is for.