Friday, October 5, 2007

Sinless Omission

blog: Zinsser says, speaking of writing, "Be grateful for everything you can throw away" (16). Why?

Response:

It's easier to get rid of trash than to organize it. It's even easier to whole-sale throw away things than to sort and evaluate. How much tinkering could be avoided by trashing…I have heard a great saying: anything not worth doing is not worth doing well. To discard is to free oneself from pointless agonies. My best friend has maddeningly liberated me on multiple occasions by telling me simply NOT to do something rather than helping me work through the details of how to do it. I am speaking very broadly of life, but the writing is the same. Suffering syntax and insidious ideas are sometimes best resolved by omission.

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