The Gift

04/02/00

Once we're keenly and clearly aware of these elements of our craft, we can use them and practice them until—the point of all practice—we don't have to think about them consciously at all, because they have become skills.

A skill is something you know how to do.

Skill in writing frees you to write what you want to write. It may also show you what you want to write. Craft enables art.

There's luck in art. There's the gift. You can't earn that. You can't deserve it. But you can learn skill, you can earn it. You can learn to deserve you gift.