A Quote by William Zinsser

Journalism is writing that first appears in any periodic journal. — © William Zinsser
Journalism is writing that first appears in any periodic journal.
A couple of pieces of advice for the kids who are serious about writing are: first of all, to read everything you can get your hands on so you can become familiar with different forms of writing: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, journalism. That's very important. And also keep a journal. Not so much, because it's good writing practice. Although it is, but more because it's a wonderful source of story starters.
Journalism is very much public writing, writing with an audience in mind, writing for publication, and frequently writing quickly. And I know that when I worked daily journalism it really affected my patience with literature, which I think requires reflection, and a different kind of engagement.
I guess when I first started writing music, I really had no idea if anyone was ever going to hear what I was writing and almost no intention of people hearing it. So, it was kind of this journal. It was pretty unfiltered.
I didn't have to keep a bloody journal. It's terribly boring keeping a journal anyway. I hate it. You spend more time writing down life instead of living it.
The first set of lyrics for the first songs I ever wrote, which are the ones on 'Pretty Hate Machine,' came from private journal entries that I realized I was writing in lyric form.
I always loved writing, but I feel like I really started writing when I got my BlackBerry . It was the first time I could take these crazy thoughts in my head and actually get them out. This little device became my journal on the road.
In a sense, journalism can be both helpful and detrimental to a writer of fiction because the kind of writing you need to do as a journalist is so different. It has to be clear, unambiguous, concise, and as a writer often you are trying to do things that are more ambiguous. I find that writing fiction is often an antidote to reading and writing too much journalism.
I keep a journal, like many writers do. It helps in writing a story, as you can use an incident from the journal and put in your story.
After a few years of intensive research, we found a way to use a pulsed laser directed into a nozzle to vaporize any material, allowing for the first time the atoms of any element in the periodic table to be produced cold in a supersonic beam.
I was not going to use writing for advertising or journalism. I would tend bar, load trucks, chauffeur - do whatever it took. But from the moment I took my first writing workshop, I was a writer.
When my journal appears, many statues must come down.
I went to journalism school, so sometimes writing the script of 'Being Mary Jane' is me putting my journalism hat on.
That's the difference between a real journal and one that's invented for a novel. A novel journal has to be manipulated so someone reading it can have enough comprehension, which means the person writing it would've had to have a sense of a someday-audience.
I don't keep a diary or a journal. Sometimes I'll send emails to friends, and that's a way of recording what I was thinking at any given time. But I've never been a journal keeper.
All my journalism, all my books are first person, and it's all memoir. Even when I'm writing about the oil spill in the Gulf, it's all first person there.
I don't keep a diary or a journal. Sometimes I'll send emails to friends and that's a way of recording what I was thinking at any given time. But I've never been a journal keeper. I feel like part of that is because I'm always on deadline. I've been a freelancer my entire career and, at any given time, I have several deadlines for all sorts of things whether it's some magazine piece or ad copywriting or anything. Obviously, people with deadlines keep journals all the time but, for me, the idea of doing more writing is never appealing. It's why I never blog.
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