A Quote by Ron Rosenbaum

With a good editor you find yourself shaping as you talk and they will ask a couple of questions that open new things. Some are good at line editing too, but there's this other, less visible talent.
I think I'm a reporter's editor. Being a good reporter is a specific skill, one I admire and don't possess myself - I appreciate people who know how to ask the right questions, who are excellent researchers, who know how to assemble information, and I enjoy working with them to shape their information into an article. Good reporters tend to be receptive to editing, and to a more collaborative form of writing in general, and you always end up learning more from how they work than you expect you will.
Not to just say you need to be a good person - but, better, find the good that you already have in yourself and don't deny that, don't let the world talk you out of the good things because it's not hip or cool. Sooner or later, you have to live with yourself.
Too many writers think that all you need to do is write well-but that's only part of what a good book is. Above all, a good book tells a good story. Focus on the story first. Ask yourself, 'Will other people find this story so interesting that they will tell others about it?' Remember: A bestselling book usually follows a simple rule, 'It's a wonderful story, wonderfully told'; not, 'It's a wonderfully told story.'
I believe that good questions are more important than answers, and the best children's books ask questions, and make the readers ask questions. And every new question is going to disturb someone's universe.
I take a lot of notes. Maybe it's a product of me taking so many notes, but I have a pretty good memory for episodes, and some of the other actors will ask me questions about things, so I have this sense of responsibility that I have to be the one to remember some of the details.
I have a great editor and I enjoy, in a masochistic way, being ruthless about my own performance. How do I know, but I think I'm quite good at saying, "That's no good. That's no good. That's it. That's it. That's good." And I'm with the editor who goes, "No, I think you're wrong. That's not your best." There's an initial point in the editing, if you're directing yourself, especially in my case, where you go, "Ouch, ouch, ouch, I can't watch this." And then, there's a point where you become hard-nosed and just take your neurosis away and go, "What's working? That's okay. That's okay. We can lose that, and lose that." You get objective about it.
So if you aspire to be a good conversationali st, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments
Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions - Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead.
Someone told me recently, "You're like Oprah, man. People will tell you anything." I'll ask questions and I don't care. If you don't want to tell me, that's fine, but it's not going to be aggressive. I'm open, too. And no judgments. It's a combination of being willing to ask the questions, and being very open myself.
One of the great things about having good players in your band is that you just ask them questions. You can pick up some good information that way.
You can give the greatest performance possible, but if you don't have a director who's pointing the camera in the right direction and an editor who's editing it properly, it doesn't matter what you do. The director and the editor are the most important people. Not the actors. Sometimes the writer is important. But if you don't have a good director, you can't have a good production.
An editor who is a mentor, advisor, and psychiatrist. Don't kid yourself-a good editor will make your book better.
You must stop editing--or you'll never finish anything. Begin with a time-management decision that indicates when the editing is to be finished: the deadline from which you construct your revisionary agenda. Ask yourself, 'How much editing time is this project worth?' Then allow yourself that time. If it's a 1,000-word newspaper article, it's worth editing for an hour or two. Allow yourself no more. Do all the editing you want, but decide that the article will go out at the end of the allotted time, in the form it then possesses.
When we have a good work dynamic we don't need to ask too many questions of each other.
I think people talk too much; that's the truth of the matter. I do. I don't believe in words. People use too many words and usually wrongly. I am sure that in the distant future people will talk much less and in a more essential way. If people talk a lot less, they will be happier. Don't ask me why.
Obviously, where art has it over life is in the matter of editing. Life can be seen to suffer from a drastic lack of editing. It stops too quick, or else it goes on too long. Worse, its pacing is erratic. Some chapters are little more than a few sentences in length, while others stretch into volumes. Life, for all its raw talent, has little sense of structure. It creates amazing textures, but it can't be counted on for snappy beginnings or good endings either. Indeed, in many cases no ending is provided at all.
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