Peter Elbow on the editorial act, from Writing without teachers (1973): The essence of editing is easy come easy go. Unless you can really say to yourself, “What the hell. There’s plenty more where that came from, let’s throw it away,” you can’t really edit. You have to be a big spender. Not tightass. More… You can’t [...]
Peter Elbow on free writing, from the book Writing without teachers (1973): There is a paradox about control which this kind of writing brings into the open. The common model of writing I grew up with preaches control. It tells me to think first, make up my mind what I really mean, figure out ahead [...]
