The Saturday Writing Quote — on inspiration

IMGP2188An editor should “quibble and inspire at the same time. … You have to believe in the writer’s work, be curious about the issues being explored, and help the writer focus on the best means of realizing whatever seems most essential. Then, after the work is done, [the editor has] to be able to articulate why it matters, why a bunch of preoccupied strangers ought to sop whatever they are doing to focus on this book. So, editors are effective through a combination of discernment and conviction and persuasiveness.”
— editorJonathan Karp, in The Writer, Aug 2012

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