Bonnie Tsui reflects (NYT) on how joining a writing collective helped her hone her craft:
I spend more time talking, which makes me a faster and better writer. This is not as weird as it sounds. My modus operandi of many years had been to work through ideas by writing. It sounds good, but what it meant in actuality was a lot of unfocused writing that went in circles. I’d struggle and spiral, elaborately, miserably, into a corner, before realizing that none of the writing was particularly good because I hadn’t thought through my ideas carefully enough. In the conversation about ideas — the clarification of an argument, the identification of a larger point to be made, the firmer realization of what I want to say before I start crafting the prose — the writing that results is inevitably clearer and smarter. Because I have opened my mouth and practiced using the words, I now set them down with more care, precision and patience.
The Dish 