Monday, November 24, 2014

I keep thinking about this and think it's true

Susan Cheever on writing:
You've described writing as being like DNA. What do you mean by that?
It’s like DNA in that it reveals everything about who you are. If you write a paragraph, I can tell everything about you from that paragraph. A sentence even. It’s not that wild. In a sentence, you make a million choices. Every word, how you punctuate it, whether you invert it or not. There are a million choices that go into writing one sentence. Therefore, each sentence is hugely revealing. I don’t think people are aware of that. At Bennington, students write their evaluations of us, and they’re anonymous. What a joke. Who can’t tell who’s writing what? I teach them, for heaven’s sakes. It’s a riot.
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http://www.thedaysofyore.com/susan-cheever/