Most of what writers write about their work is ill-informed bullshit. That is why you have never seen a book entitled One Hundred Great Introductions of Western Civilization or Best-Loved Forewords of the American People.
This is a judgment call on our part, of course, but after writing at least fifty original content posts and not to mention an entire forum about the craft of literature—I think it’s one we have a right to make. And we think we can take us seriously when this might be one of those rare occasions upon which we actually have something of worth to say.
Before we close we should say a word about the young men who dared to write this book. These young men had been exposed to far too many writing seminars, and had grown far too used to the ideas those seminars promulgate: that one is writing for other people rather than oneself; that language is more important than story; that ambiguity is to be preferred over clarity and simplicity. These are usually signs of a milkshake mind.
In any case, we didn’t want to seem muzzled or even really change the way this story seems to be told; for
all its seeming faults, it has its own special charms, it seems to us.