Take a glance at some of Scott Berkun’s book titles and you’ll probably think, “Wow, that’s probably an interesting guy.” Scott’s books include The Myths of Innovation and The Year Without Pants. Just so you don’t keep the wrong idea, that last book is about WordPress and the future of work. Then you find out that, in addition to WordPress, Berkun has worked at Microsoft (yes, I know, hard to believe), taught creativity, and hosted a television show.
Now you think, “Oh, boy, that fellow must have some interesting stuff to say.” He does that. This week’s bit of writerly wisdom comes from Scott’s blog post titled “How to write a book – the short honest truth.” When you’re done soaking up the wisdom in the next quote, click through and read the whole post.
“Writing a good book, compared to a bad one, involves one thing. Work. No one wants to hear this, but if you take two books off any shelf, I’ll bet my pants the author of the better book worked harder than the author of the other one. Call it effort, study, practice, whatever. Sure there are tricks here and there, but really writing is a kind of work.”
Want more? Check out the complete list of Advice from the Masters posts
If you want even more writing advice from writers, check out Jon Winokur’s blog, “AdvicetoWriters.”