I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve read this sentence:
[image: Swimming lesson. Not.]The best way to learn writing is to write.
It comes mostly from pantsers who don’t want to learn story structure, who think it’s a straightjacket for producing formulaic pablum and they want no part of it.
When my middle daughter graduated from high school she wanted to write songs. We got her a small keyboard and I offered to give her lessons.
“No, that’s okay. I know what I’m doing.”
She was echoing what I’ve heard dozens of songwriters say: “Learning music theory will destroy my spontaneous creativity.”
Really? So you’re saying that me and Mozart and Dylan and Donald Fagen are drudges? I’m not the genius those three are, but I write better songs because I learned music theory, not in spite of it. Listen to Donald Fagen talk about composing the Steely Dan song Peg:
Authors seem to think they need to please their fans, or Amazon, or a publisher. I know I’ll be the voice no one wants to hear, but I don’t change my art for anyone. And yeah, you’re gonna say that I’ll never be a best-seller; that if you don’t bend to the market, you’ll never get popular.
John Work is an author. He posted this on a Linked In group and graciously gave permission for me to reprint it here. Emphasis throughout is mine.![[image: I think it's a diving board]](http://images.freeimages.com/images/previews/3e0/salvador-1195961.jpg){kind=link}