from the
Effective Writing
newspaper column by
Stephen Wilbers

Star Tribune, January 7, 2008

According to our interpretation of the Second Amendment, the only people with the right to bare arms are ice anglers, given their need to plunge their arms into icy water to nab that big walleye before it gets away.

The Second Amendment reads, “A well insulated cadre of ice anglers, being necessary to the well-being of a northern State, the right of the people to bare arms, shall not be infringed.”

in the Star Tribune, July 25, 2004

There’s a time to draft and a time to edit. First we are artists, and then we are critics — or as Stephen King advises, “Write with the door closed; rewrite with the door open.”

In the first phase, you should feel free to try things out, to follow your ideas where they take you, to be bold and adventurous. In the second phase, you should take a critical look at what you have done, entertain second thoughts, challenge your assumptions.

To allow the computer to intrude on the drafting phase is like having your mother show up on a first date. It isn’t that you don’t like your mother; it’s just that her presence is premature.