Roger Ebert
My first exposure to Roger Ebert’s writing (outside of movie reviews) was “The Pot and How to Use It“, a justifiably famous blog post that was turned into a book. Over the past few days, that and a lot of other remarkable things he wrote have been repeated online, but one piece of advice he gave has struck me:
“Just write, get better, keep writing, keep getting better. It’s the only thing you can control.”
It was originally something he told Will Leitch, and that story is worth reading as well.
I didn’t know he wrote anything other than movie reviews. That is, of course, excellent advice. I’ll have to go check out more of his work. At least, his words are still with us.
I’d recommend reading his whole journal (which would take a while), because very often something in an entry would just make me stop and ponder an amazing turn of phrase. How do they get that way? is a good one, and A slow boat to anywhere is interesting, but really anything. Of course, part of it is that he led such an interesting life. I mean, the man went on a date with Oprah Winfrey and suggested she take her show into syndication, for crying out loud.