WRITERS ON WRITING; Directions: Write, Read, Rewrite. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 as Needed. - New York Times

WRITERS ON WRITING; Directions: Write, Read, Rewrite. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 as Needed. - New York Times: "Reading novels seems to me such a normal activity, while writing them is such an odd thing to do. . . . At least so I think until I remind myself how firmly the two are related. (No armored generalities here. Just a few remarks.)

First, because to write is to practice, with particular intensity and attentiveness, the art of reading. You write in order to read what you've written and see if it's O.K. and, since of course it never is, to rewrite it -- once, twice, as many times as it takes to get it to be something you can bear to reread. You are your own first, maybe severest, reader. ''To write is to sit in judgment on oneself,'' Ibsen inscribed on the flyleaf of one of his books. Hard to imagine writing without rereading."