You can write only with your brain . . . good writing depends on extensive reading . . . To write, you need first to read . . . everything you have ever read provides the thought and vocabulary of your own writing . . . you are allowed to think as you write . . . How do you find what to say? Obviously by reading and thinking and note-taking . . . Honest writing always involves hard thinking: there are no shortcuts to originality . . . Think into language . . . Revision need never stop . . . Sometimes writing proves difficult because you don't know enough . . . Summon all your powers of lateral thinking . . . Writing, unlike the universe, doesn't come from nothing . . .
– Alastair Fowler (2006)
