Mila Magazin

Robert MacDonald
Literature Review
30-Jun-15
Have you ever read a book and wondered how the writer is seemingly able to effortlessly
write one novel after another? Over the years many conversations have taken place, and still
continue to take place, about writing and what exactly makes a good writer. Is their writing
process really as effortless as it seems? Are these novelists naturally talented? Is this something
they are born with or did they actually have some figuring out to do before they became who
they were? Whats their story? And what are their tips for aspiring writers everywhere? The
writing process can be a discouraging one indeed but have any great, well-known writers ever
actually had any struggles that they had to conquer before or while writing their now famous
words onto paper? Sometimes it may seem as if their only concern and responsibility is waking
up in the morning and writing, as if they have no personal issues and struggles weighing them
down, so is it even possible for a person who lives in the real world to get to where they are?
This text is going to offer some insight and possibly some answers to these questions by
introducing 8 well-known writers and offering summaries of some of their writings. The writers
discussed are Bruce Ballenger, Amy Tan, Susan Sontag, Kurt Vonnegut, Malcom X, Henry
Miller, Brenda Ueland, and William Zinsser.
Some people believe that being grammatically correct is what makes a piece of writing
one they consider a good piece of writing. So many people are afraid of writing a bad piece and
that becomes all they think about when they are writing. Bruce Ballenger challenges the belief

that writing needs to be grammatically perfect to be considered good in his article titled The
Importance of Writing Badly.
In Bruce Ballengers article titled The Importance of Writing Badly he talks about how
often he hears somebody criticizing students writing once they find out that he is a writing
professor at a university. Bruce Ballenger talks about how even his colleagues criticize students
writing and that his colleagues wait for their students to make mistakes such as a comma splice, a
misspelled word or even an ambiguous pronoun just so they can mark the students papers with
red pens. Bruce Ballenger goes on to say that his problem on the other hand is the opposite,
getting his students to write badly.
Bruce Ballenger states that most people have at one point in their lives encountered an
English teacher in their past who have criticized the grammatical errors in their writing,
scribbling corrections onto their papers. He uses his eight grade English teacher Mrs. ONeil as
his personal example. But according to Bruce, he has encountered some people who think fondly
of an English teacher they have had in the past, people who appreciate their own Mrs. ONeils
because it made them appreciate a well written sentence. Unlike those students, Ballenger went
the opposite direction and instead dreaded writing, only wrote when he had to, never because he
wanted to.
Ballenger states that a most of his students are in a similar situation when he first meets
them, that they are less concerned about discovering what they have to say and more concerned
with how they say something. He talks about the anxiety and panic that sets in his students the
night before an essay is due. Bruce Ballenger speaks of a colleague of his who more often than
not complains about the grammatical errors his students make and that he feels his colleague is
not interested in what his students are trying to say through their writing. Bruce writes that he

personally is more concerned with encouraging his students to think freely when they write and
think less about how to write sentences without errors. Ballenger finds that when he tells his
students that it is okay to write badly the students find their voices. It is his opinion that the
thinking does not start without the writing. To conclude, Bruce Ballenger writes that it is more
important for students to learn how language can be a catalyst that helps them discover how they
see the world. He ends the article by stating that what matters is where you end up (Ballanger).
Bruce Ballenger believed that giving his students permission to write badly helped them
think clearly and ultimately, find their voices, he wanted his students to be natural in their
writing, just like they are when they are conversing with another person. The next summary
How to Write with Style by Kurt Vonnegut offers a few helpful writing tips and one of his tips
agrees with Ballengers idea of letting your writing naturally flow.
In the article How to write with style by Kurt Vonnegut, he begins by stating that most
writers reveal a lot about themselves through their writing which in turn helps the reader know
what kind of a person they are associating with. Vonnegut goes on to say that one should attempt
to improve their writing style as a sign of respect to his or her readers.
Kurt Vonneguts first tip is to write about a subject you feel passionate about. It does not
matter what the subject is or how long whatever you are writing turns out being as long as you
truly care about the subject you are writing about. His next tip urges a writer not to ramble.
Kurt Vonneguts third tip is to keep your writing simple. He uses William Shakespeare
and James Joyce as examples of how one could say a simple thing yet have it come across as
enlightening to the readers. Vonneguts fourth tip is to have the courage to take a sentence out if
it does not light up the subject you are writing about in any way.

Kurt Vonneguts fifth tip on how to write with style is to be natural in your writing, to
sound like the person that you are. His next tip is to mean what you say and to make sure that
your reader also understands you and/or your point of view. He states that if you have something
worthwhile to say and if you wish to be understood by your readers that you should avoid
attempting to be the Picasso of writers.
Kurt Vonneguts seventh tip is to pity your readers. He goes on to state that our readers
require us to be a sympathetic teacher towards them and to simplify and clarify if needed. He
concludes the article by telling us, the readers, to come to the realization that people would not
care how badly Mr. White expressed himself had he not had such beautiful things to say
(Vonnegut).
Vonnegut encourages writers to be themselves, to keep things simple, and One of Kurt
Vonneguts tips also states the importance of writing about a topic you feel passionately about
because he feels that if you have something to say, it is important therefore you should say it. Or
in this case, write it. William Zinsser also believed in keeping things simple. So much so that he
wrote a passionate piece called Clutter that continually states the importance of keeping things
simple.
In William Zinssers article titled Clutter, William starts out by comparing a writer
fighting clutter to a person fighting weeds, that they always keep coming back with new ones
sprouting overnight. William Zinsser speaks of clutter in words as in adding prepositions onto
verbs that serve no purpose such as saying personal friend or free up. William Zinsser writes
about the unnecessary use of presently or currently which could easily be replaces by the
word now.

William Zinsser states that clutter is political correctness at the very extreme. He goes on
to say that large corporations use clutter to hide their mistakes, he states that political correctness
is largly made of euphemisms which invoke questions and are covered with vagueness.
William Zinsser advises readers to be wary of long words that are not any better than
their shorter synonyms such as assistance meaning help, numerous meaning many,
facilitate meaning ease, individual meaning man or woman, remainder meaning rest,
initial meaning first, implement meaning do, sufficient meaning enough, attempt
meaning try, and referred to as meaning called. William Zinsser goes on to state that all these
long words are weeds that will kill what you try to write and not to dialogue with somebody you
can talk to.
William Zinsser writes that he helps his students at Yale by bracketing certain
components of their writing that werent useful such as unnecessary prepositions added to a very
like order up, or adverbs that carry the same meaning as in smile happily, or adjectives that
states known facts such as tall skyscrapers. William also writes that his brackets usually are put
around terms that weaken any sentence such as a bit or sort of or in a sense.
William Zinsser writes that most first drafts could be cut in half without cutting out any
of the authors voice. He states that the reason he brackets instead of crossing the words out is
because he wants to give the authors a chance to analyze their word.
William Zinsser ends the article by telling readers to look for clutter in their writing too
and to be grateful for everything they can throw away. He continues to advise the readers to
repeatedly examine their writing and to simplify (Zinsser).

William Zinsser believed that one should not add things to their writing that were not
their natural voice and he states the importance of reading your own writing and then re-reading
it. Susan Sontag also believed that you should read and re-read your own writing. In her piece
titled Directions: Write, Read, Rewrite. Repeat steps 2 and 3 as Needed, Sontag writes about
the importance of reviewing your work.
In Susan Sontags article Directions: Write, Read, Rewrite. Repeat steps 2 and 3 as
Needed she states that writing is a practice. She also states that you are your own worst critic
when it comes to your writing.
Sontag believes that rewriting and rereading are the most satisfactory parts of writing and
that you will find yourself taking pleasure in what you have written. Her opinion is that to write
you are giving yourself permission to be expressive and creative.
Sontag writes that she was diagnosed with cancer she had to take a break from her job as
a writer she thought she would never finish her book. A friend of hers in Los Angeles offered to
take a leave of absence from his job to go to her in New York to help her dictate the her novel,
but she had declined his offer.
Susan had become blind due to the cancer and chemo therapy, she felt that part of writing
is also reading. Not only reading her own work but the work of other writers. Susan states that
that the phrase losing yourself in a book is not a fantasy and that to her it is an addictive reality
that can make one feel as if they do not have an ego.
Sontag states that everybody likes thinking that writing is a form of self-expression
because they are not supposed to have the capability to write about anybody but themselves. She
continues to thats not true. She asks why one wouldnt write to escape themselves just as much

as they would write to express themselves. She believes that it is more interesting to write about
others. But she does also say that she lends parts of herself to the characters in her books.
Susan writes that the difference between reading and writing is that reading is a vocation
which you can improve with practice. But as a writer you get things like insecurity and anxiety.
Susan feels that some books are necessary to read. In Susans opinion a necessary novel should
be a book filled with wisdom, playfulness, sympathetic situations, a history servant, and
advocate contrary yet defiant emotions (Sontag).
Sontag obviously believed in the importance of revision. But another thing that Sontag
believed is that writing is a form of self-expression that one can lose themselves in writing but
that one can also find themselves in writing as well. Clearly, Sontag was not without trouble, she
had real life problems of her own to deal with while she was trying to write her book. In Henry
Millers article Reflections on Writing he talks about the struggles he faced while trying to find
his voice and just like Sontag, he writes about the emotions that he as a writer feels when he is
letting himself just write.
Henry Millers article Reflections on Writing starts out with him stating that he
originally wrote this for the former head of the legal staff in his Treasury Department in
Washington, D.C., Huntington Cairns. Miller writes that writing is a journey of discovery and
that writing is an indirect way of approaching life. He continues to say that one will discover that
what they have to say is not as important as saying it is.
Henry Miller writes that at the beginning he attempts to imitate writing styles and
techniques of some people that he once admired such as Nietzche, Dostoievski, Hamsun, and
Thomas Mann in an attempt to discover the secret of how to write. Miller talks about the dead

end road he finally came to as a desperation that few men have experienced. He states that he
cannot divorce himself as a writer from himself as a man and that failing as a writer also meant
that he was failing as a man. Miller then goes on to say that it wasnt until this point that he truly
began to write. Then he heard his own voice for the first time and felt enchanted. At that point he
did not care whether what he wrote would be considered bad or not.
Henry Miller states that through writing, he learns less but realizes more and that he lives
in a certainty that does not depend on proof or faith, he lives for himself completely but without
the egotism. He can write just as easily as he can not write. Henry Miller states that the opinions
of the reader and critics is no longer important to him. Henry Miller writes that he cares about
language and not about a string of words, regardless of how well put together they are. Henry
writes that once a man realizes that the world is an ideal combination of imperfections and the
consciousness of failure, then the fear of failure is eliminated. He writes that a writer expresses
by going through a series of imperfections. He goes on to say that a writer gets closer to the
center of truth once he is no longer struggling to write and once he abandons his will.
Communication is secondary to perpetuation for perpetuation is more important.
Henry Miller states that he would like to meet with the writing critics and show them how
a passage written that seems to be effortlessly written was actually written under extreme duress
while one that seems took a lot of planning and effort was in fact very easy to write.
Henry Miller writes that things like a mans thoughts about himself are able to be
changed. He writes that the experiences he has lived through which are incomprehensible, he
relives again though his writing, he experiences again through his writing. He goes on to say that
he remembers he remembers his work but not his exact words written.

Henry Miller states that life begins through realizations, just like writing. He goes on to
say that every beginning and that each beginning he writes whether its a new book, paragraph or
even just a sentence is vitally connected to his life whether it is through emotion, experiences or
thoughts.
Henry Miller writes that he admittedly only began writing because writing was his only
outlet, he feels writing is the only task that is worthy of his powers. He continues by saying that
he did not choose to write to escape the real world, on the contrary writing actually helped Miller
develop deeper thoughts about reality. Henry Miller ends by stating that in order to become a
successful writer he had to write as an uneducated way, in his own way, which is the hardest way
(Miller).
Henry Miller believes that he had to lose himself, hit the lowest low possible, before he
could find his voice. Miller also believes that the writing process does not truly begin until a
writer is so overwhelmed with emotions that they do not care about anything else other than
getting them down on paper. Family Ghosts Hoard Secrets That Bewitch the Living, by Amy
Tan is a great example of Millers beliefs regarding emotions and writing.
In Amy Tans essay Family Ghosts Hoard Secrets That Bewitch the Living she talks
about how her three half-sisters and younger brother gathered around their dying mother in the
last week of her life.
Amy Tan was writing her mothers obituary for her using her siblings help. Amy Tan says
that writing the obituary made her feel helpful as opposed to helpless, she also writes that writing
the obituary is how she for the first time learned what her mothers birth name was.

Amy Tan writes that her mother whose birth name was Li Bingzi. But was given a
different name when she was adopted which was Tu Lian Zen following her mothers death.
Afterwards she chose the name Tu Ching as her school name. Amy Tans mother also had the
name Daisy Tan Chan which she never told her sisters about.
Amy Tan writes that for four days her mother kept her in suspense because she would
take three breaths and then not any for at least 45 seconds following those three breaths. Amy
Tan talks about how her mother would speak of killing herself her entire life. She states her
mother had many reasons for wanting to die. Amy Tan speaks of remembering a knife, cleaver
and a pair of scissors in her adolescence.
Amy Tan states that even though her grandmother had killed herself in 1925, her presence
was still in her life quite a bit. She refers to this as a ghostly presence. She states that her mother
thought she could see her grandmothers ghost just because she once complained about the
bogeyman.
After Amy Tans mother died she began to rewrite a novel that she had been working on.
She used her grief to help her write. Amy Tan rewrote of things that scared her such as ghosts,
threats, curses, wrong birth dates, secret marriages. She states she had help from her
ghostwriters (Tan).
Amy Tan believed that her grief and strong emotions following her mothers death helped
her finish her book. Some might argue that the only reason Amy Tan was able to write her book
is because she had a special talent that few other people possessed. But Brenda Ueland would
argue otherwise in chapters 1 and 6 of her book If You Want to Write, Ueland writes about a
power that is within all of us.

In chapter one of Brenda Uelands book If You Want to Write, she begins by stating that every
person is talented and that everybody has something of importance to say. She continues to say
that only the people who write very easily are those that are not talented because those are the
only ones who do not improve their writing or move forward with it. Brenda Ueland continues to
write that every person is talented because they have something to say, to show, with their
writing. Brenda Ueland compares writing, singing, music and painting to putting our thoughts on
paper.
Brenda Ueland writes that every person is original, and that every person has a creative
imagination that they need to express and share with others, Brenda then goes on to say that a
persons creative imagination is beat out of them early in their lives due to the criticism of others.
Brenda compares a persons creative power to a couple of young ten year old girls who put on
plays solely because of the joy of it. Brenda Ueland states that the reason a persons imagination
and passion die so young in their lives is because they do not see how important it is and because
they let other duties get in the way, also because we lack self-respect. Brenda continues talking
about why our impulse for creativity dies, because of an English teacher being overly critical.
Brenda continues on this subject by stating that our own personal critics such as our family
members kill this impulse for creativity.
In Brenda Uelands sixth chapter of If You Want to Write, she says that one of the
things she had learned from her students is that one should feel emotions and feelings while they
are writing. Brenda writes that you are living spiritually and with imagination when you are
living in the present. Brenda Ueland speaks passionately about the importance of living in the
present and uses a couple of her students, Carl Sandburg and Francesca, as examples of what it

looks like to live in the present. She also uses them as a way to link living in the present moment
to creativity.
Brenda Ueland writes that you should never, under any circumstance, create writing rules
for yourself or ask yourself whether you are doing something in the correct way or not. She
continues to encourage readers to live in the present moment, to be open and free to everything
and not to pretend with anything.
Brenda expresses her view that people in America are controlled by the idea that they will
finally start living 20 years from now as opposed to now due to them saving for their retirement.
She states that living spiritually is important and the only time we are living spiritually is when
we are living in the present and absorbed by something we really care about (Ueland).
Brenda Ueland believed that within all of us lies a talent, and imagination, and that we all
have something important to say. She also believed that the only time we are truly alive is when
we are being absorbed by something that we really care about. Malcom X had a strong urge to
learn how to read and write, although he was a prisoner for many years, Malcom X states at the
end of his article Coming to an Awareness of Language that he had not truly felt free until he
was so absorbed in reading and writing. This article is proves Uelands theory that everybody has
talent lying within them.
In Malcom Xs article Coming to an Awareness of Language, Malcom begins by
stating that he has always done something about anything hes ever felt strongly about and that is
the reason he began writing to people. He wrote to Sammy the Pimp, John Hughes, Jumpsteady
and many dope dealers about Allah and Islam.

Malcom never got a single reply from these criminals that he wrote to, he guesses it is
because most of them are uneducated and therefore unable to read. Malcom then goes on to say
that no prison official never said anything to him during his years in prison and that he is sure
that all of his letters had been monitored and placed into files that every prison keeps regarding
the conversion of Negro inmates by the teachings of Muhammad.
Malcom X goes on to say that he eventually went on to write letters to the Mayor of
Boston, Governor of Massachusetts, and Harry S. Truman, with no reply. He states that he started
to gain some sort of education due to writing his letters.
Malcom states that he was the smoothest hustler on the streets but now hes having
trouble trying to write simple English that he does not even know how he would convey the way
he speaks, slang, into writing. Malcom did not finish eighth grade, although due to the studying
he did in prison, most people are under the impression that he did.
Bimbi was another inmate at Charlestown Prison whom Malcom was envious of due to
his amount of knowledge, so that is when Malcom began to study in prison. Malcom goes on to
say that had he not had the motivation from Bimbi, he would have given up on the motions of
reading that he was going through in the beginning of his personal studies. Malcom had decided
to learn some new words and improve his penmanship so he requested a dictionary as well as a
notebook and pencils from the Norfolk Prison Colony School.
Malcom spent two days just going through the words in the dictionary, uncertainly. He
was surprised to learn how many different words existed. He was not aware which words he
should learn so he began copying the dictionary, it took him a day to copy the first page onto his
notebook, even the punctuation marks. Afterwards, he read everything he had written in the

notebook repeatedly and out loud. The next morning Malcom claims that he woke up thinking
about the words he had read and written and read which he was not even aware were in the
world. He was even more proud that he could remember the meaning of many of those words.
The ones which he could not remember, he reviewed.
Malcom was so intrigued by his progress that he went on the copy the second page of the
dictionary. He compares the dictionary to a small encyclopedia. Malcom eventually copied the
entire dictionary. The copying process went faster because he was becoming a faster writer due
to doing it so much. He estimates that during his time in prison he had written a million words.
With his newly acquired word knowledge, he decided to start reading again, this time he
would understand what he was reading and from then until he got out of prison he spent every
free moment reading, whether he was in the library or his bunk. Malcom ends by saying from
Mr. Muhammads teaching to his correspondence and his visitors and his reading of books, he
had not noticed that months had passed without him feeling like a prisoner. Malcom states that
he had not been as free in his life up until that point (Malcom).
All of these stories have their differences. But the one thing that remains the same is that
they all speak of how freeing of a feeling it is to be able to write once you find your own voice.
They speak of letting yourself just without worrying about how it will come out. Once you start
writing the possibilities are endless it seems. They stress about the importance of being yourself
in your writing, being your true self, and the rest will follow. Just like with anything in life, it
seems that we do not truly find ourselves until we stop worrying about how things will look or
turn out and just let ourselves be who we are.

Ueland, Brenda. If You Want to Write. 2nd ed. St. Paul: Graywolf, 1987. 3-9, 49-62. Print.
Tan, Amy. "Writers on Writing: Family Ghosts Hoard Secrets That Bewitch the Living." The
New York Times. The New York Times Company. 26 Feb. 2001. Web. 2 July 2015.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/26/books/writers-on-writing-family-ghosts-hoard-secretsthat-bewitch-the-living.html>.
Ballenger, Bruce. "The Importance of Writing Badly." The Christian Science Monitor. n.p. 28
Mar. 1990. Web. 2 July 2015. <http://www.csmonitor.com/1990/0328/ubad.html>.
Sontag, Susan. "Directions: Write, Read, Rewrite. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 as Needed." The New
York Times. The New York Times Company. 18 Dec. 2000. Web. 2 Feb. 2015.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/18/books/writers-on-writing-directions-write-read-rewriterepeat-steps-2-and-3-as-needed.html>.
Vonnegut, Kurt. "How to Write with Style." Biblioklept. n.p. n.d. Web. 2 July 2015.
<http://biblioklept.org/2014/11/07/how-to-write-with-style-kurt-vonnegut/>.
Malcom X. "Coming to an Awareness of Language." Genius. Genius Media Group Inc. n.d. Web.
2 July 2015. <http://genius.com/Malcolm-x-coming-to-an-awareness-of-language-annotated>.
Zinsser, William. "Clutter." On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction. 30th
Anniversary Ed., 7th ed. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. 13-17. Print.
Miller, Henry, and Lawrence Durrell. "Reflections on Writing." The Henry Miller Reader. New
York: New Directions, 1959. 242-251. Print.