American writer William Zinsser has written a number of several inspirational books that any ^every^ serious writer (and pro-blogger) should read. While I don't always do what I should, hHis advice has influenced both my fiction and non-fiction my writing more than that of any writer ^considerably^. The most important writing advice I've ever learned came from his book "On Writing Well". I'm paraphrasing, but Zinsser suggested ^suggests^ that once you've written a piece, take a (proverbial) pencil and strike out every other word. If the ^your^ meaning of what you wanted to say is still there in the visible words, then you have your ^you're^ finished piece (aside from grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, which you've presumably already checked for). If some of the meaning has been lost, keep inserting back a few strategic words until your meaning becomes clear.

When I was publishing a free monthly magazine, Chaos Review, back in the early- to mid- 1990s, I had a lot of ^contributing^ writers. But because they were essentially volunteers and deadlines had to be met, I often ended up writing a lot of reviews (books, film, music) myself. One of the hardest things I've ever found about writing is saying the same thing in less words rather than more. My magazine only had so much editorial space. Reviews had to be relatively short. I wrote literally hundreds of reviews for my magazine and three others in a 10-year period. Doing this hones your ability to write succinctly. But you have to keep it up. I often find myself being verbose while writing my blogs because they have such a loose style. Editing takes work, especially when it's your own writing.

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