Brookhiser on writing

From Richard Brookhiser's blog, "Right Time, Right Place" on National Review Online:

Secrets of Writing, Revealed
One of the questions that came up in Claremont, Calif., on my Left Coast swing was, How does one become a (better) writer? I gave three practical exercises.

Writing. Practice does not make perfect, unless you are Keats, but it makes you better. Write and write and write, to deadline if possible (that compels you to write faster).

Reading. Read good writers. Steal shamelessly. In time, and with luck, the dross of imitation will fall away, and you will be left with your own alloy. (William F. Buckley Jr. was a model to all who wrote for him, though we couldn't — and shouldn't — have become junior WFBs ourselves).

Editing. (Don't you mean being edited? — Ed.) Having your flourishes struck away is a necessary experience. It is good to have to take one hundred words out of a piece because an ad got bigger; better to have to put the words back and add another hundred because the ad went away.