As noted in Part One, the desire to write is an obvious requirement for becoming a good writer.  This is such a basic observation that I am almost embarrassed to make it.  I dare say that most of us want to write at least moderately well, but there are degrees of desire, and we can have many different reasons for wanting to do so.  The intensity of the desire and the motives behind it can greatly affect the outcome.

One might, for example, want to become an actor or actress, an athlete, or a skilled worker in some other field.  Most of us have dreams of becoming something.  However dreams, and even modest goals, do not usually become realities all by themselves.  We face hurdles along the way.  How we deal with these hurdles has at least as much impact on our likelihood of success as does the strength of the forces that drive us.

One hurdle is ability or aptitude.  While no hurdle is completely insurmountable (a few individuals somehow manage to accomplish remarkable feats for which they appeared to have no aptitude), being genetically "wired" or, in some other mysterious way, prepared for the task makes the hurdle less forbidding.  At least, it prevents us from abandoning our dream prematurely.  The second hurdle is opportunity.  Even if we have an aptitude for something, if we don't have the opportunity to develop it, we may never do so.  (Bear in mind, however, that opportunities aren't always obvious; if we don't look for them, we may miss them.)

The most formidable challenge is willingness – not just "wanting" but an intense desire to go to great lengths to accomplish the goal.  Willingness isn't just wanting something to happen.  It frequently involves sacrifice and almost entails the exertion of energy and expenditure of time that we commonly label "work."  We may clear the lower hurdles if we have sufficient strength and ability, but the higher hurdles require more than that. 

To use a negative analogy, I would have liked to have been able to be a professional musician.  I love music, and I admire and envy those who can perform.  However, even though I took the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, I had almost no aptitude for it.  Those who learned more quickly than I did were a complete mystery to me, and the truth is that, though I worked at it, I probably didn't work as hard as they did.  In a very short time, I became satisfied to settle for mediocrity or even less than that.  I certainly didn't have the same aptitude or drive that I had for developing my writing skill.  Consequently, I never became even a competent amateur musician and eventually gave up entirely.  (I should note, though, that it wasn't a waste of time.  The experience made me a more appreciative and discriminating listener, just as I think that those who try their hand at writing become more appreciative and discriminating readers.)

Writing was a different story.  I was intensely willing to take whatever aptitude I had, great or small, and develop it to the limits.  It mattered not at all that what I saw of professional writing belonged in a class that seemed beyond my reach.  My compulsion to improve (my willingness), however plodding my efforts might be, was overwhelming.  Arrayed against this overwhelming desire were challenges that would have discouraged me if my willingness to meet them had not been as strong as it was.

The first challenge to any writer is to learn the language and how it works.  I realized early on that anyone who knows how to speak a language thinks that he or she "knows" the language but that writing requires more than this.  At the very least, it demands an understanding of the grammatical conventions.  Being able to explain them is perhaps necessary only for grammarians and English teachers, but knowing how to follow them is essential for writers, even if they cannot recite rules or label parts of speech.  While learning grammar is a chore for many people, it wasn't for me.  This doesn't mean that I didn't have to work at it, but here's where fascination with language came in again.  Because I had this fascination, I had a deep desire to understand how language works; the study of grammar, I realized, was the means to this understanding.  Therefore, it was worth the effort.

Bear in mind that, when I was studying grammar, I did not know that I would eventually be teaching it.  It was a means to an end, specifically to develop the understanding that would enable me to write clearly and effectively.  To this day, now that I am teaching grammar and writing, my approach is not to treat grammar as merely a set of conventional rules but as a set of tools for expression.  I needed to know how to use it for the same reason that a carpenter needs to know how to use his tools.  This was essential, but I also realized that knowledge of grammar does not make one a writer any more than knowledge of what a hammer and saw do makes one a carpenter.

I came to understand that correct writing is not necessarily effective writing.  This was not a sudden insight, as some of my early experiences with language were, but a gradual process.  I reached a point at which I knew the grammar and mechanics so well that correctness was almost automatic.  For example, I put commas where they belonged with the same lack of conscious thought that the driver of a car knows how to handle the steering wheel.  That did not make me a good writer, but it did free my mind to work on the qualities that would.

To put it simply, command of grammar and mechanics required only that I study the language.  To develop the rest of my skills as a writer, I needed to experience the language.  I had done some of this as a reader, but that was largely a passive experience.  Nonetheless, partly because of my drive to write, I began to read differently.  In this regard, I recall a strange incident in high school.  After we had read a short story or novel (I forget which), the teacher asked with whom we identified most.  She meant, of course, which character.  I blurted out that I identified with the author.  It was the first time I consciously expressed, or was consciously aware, that, when I read a book, I was paying as much (or more) attention to how the author communicated with me (the reader) as to what the author communicated.

I was still painfully aware that virtually every author I read did a better job of expressing ideas or painting verbal pictures than I could do.  There was obviously only one solution – practice.   To return to my musical analogy, I could not become an accomplished musician merely by listening to the performances of people who played well; I had to practice my own "music." Some if it, to be sure, was imitation of writers whom I admired, but I also had to develop my own voice.  I also needed to have something to say or, at least, a purpose – whether that purpose is to inform, to persuade, to entertain, to paint a verbal picture, to arouse emotions, or to tell a story.

Finally, I have a few words about style.  Once one is beyond the fundamentals and mechanics of writing, one should develop a personal style.  It's an evolutionary process; style grows and changes just as we do.  The principal requirement is that it must be natural, accurately reflecting us and how we process words and ideas, without putting on airs.  Ideally, our style will represent us at our best, and this, once more, takes work, including painstaking self-criticism.  Mastering the art of revision is an essential ingredient in writing well.

The product is a paradox.  It will look as if it was produced effortlessly, the way an athkete makes a difficult feat look easy.  Yet it will look as if it was produced effortlessly only if we work very hard at it.