"Writing Is Easy!"

That's the name of an essay by Steve Martin in his excellent collection Pure Drivel. Here's a quote:

"Writer's block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they can have an excuse to drink alcohol."

That's clearly a joke. No writer I know needs an excuse.

Here's another:

"'Dagnabbit' will never get you anywhere with the Booker Prize people. Lose it."

His observation that publishers nowadays can be either male or female, and the importance of getting the pronoun right, is worth the price of the book alone.

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