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The Forest for the Trees: An editor's advice to writers

This book provides practical tips and strategies for improving writing, drawing on the author's experience as an editor. more

Author

Betsy Lerner
Betsy Lerner

Betsy Lerner is an American poet known for her profound and unique poetic style. Her works explore personal experiences, social phenomena, and human emotions, winning her a wide audience. more

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“But I also believe there is enormous value in the piece of writing that goes no further than the one person for whom it was intended, that no combination of written words is more eloquent than those exchanged in letters between lovers or friends, or along the pale blue lines of private diaries, where people take communion with themselves.”

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Book:The Forest for the Trees (Revised and Updated): An Editor's Advice to Writers
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“In discovering books, you became free to explore the full range of human motives, desires, secrets, and lies. All my life, people have scolded me for having an excess of feeling, saying that I was too sensitive - as if one could be in danger from feeling too much instead of too little. But my outsize emotions were well represented in books. [] there simmered all the feelings no one ever admits to.”

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Book:The Forest for the Trees: An editor's advice to writers
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“Tomorrow, I am fifty-two years old. And I want to say unequivocally that I am very happy to be alive, that being alive is better than being dead. And if I have just one wish it is this: that you work with all your might and love with all your heart and never lose hope and never give up.”

IfsWantGivingYearsHeartTwoMightWishLosesAliveTomorrowGiving UpAnd LoveJust OneFiftyTwo YearsVery HappyNever Giving UpTwo Year OldsNever Lose HopeHappy To Be Alive
Author:Betsy Lerner
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“Asking for advice about what you should write is a little like asking for help getting dressed. I can you tell you what I think looks good, but you have to wear it. And as every fashion victim knows, very few people look good in everything.”

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Book:The Forest for the Trees: An editor's advice to writers
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“The world doesn’t fully make sense until the writer has secured his version of it on the page. And the act of writing is strangely more lifelike than life….every person who does serious time with a keyboard is attempting to translate his version of the world into words so that he might be understood…. Your job is to marshal the talent you do have and find people who believe in your work. What’s important, finally, is that you create, and that those creations define for you what matters most, that which cannot be extinguished even in the face of silence, solitude, and rejection.”

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Author:Betsy Lerner
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