Design Thought Leader

July 27, 2010

“I’ve never defined myself as a writer, or, God forbid, an author. I’m a person—someone who goes to work every morning, like the plumber or the television repairman, and who goes home at the end of the day to think about other things. I can’t imagine not going to work as long as I can. …

I try to refocus my frazzled writers on the process of writing, not the product. If the process is sound, the product will take care of itself. Recently I got a letter from a young woman writer who was back home in California after her annual visit. She said, ‘Your office is a sanctuary of craft amidst the hullabaloo of publishers, editors, and agents. You have no idea how liberating that is.’

It may seem perverse that I compare my writing to plumbing, an occupation not regarded as high-end. But to me all work is equally honorable, all crafts an astonishment when they are performed with skill and self-respect. Just as I go to work every day with my tools, which are words, the plumber arrives with his kit of wrenches and washers, and afterward the pipes have been so adroitly fitted together that they don’t leak. I don’t want any of my sentences to leak. The fact that someone can make water come out of a faucet on the 10th floor strikes me as a feat no less remarkable than the construction of a clear declarative sentence.”