I followed with a few arguments supporting the notion that creative writing can be taught, and I suggested a potentially cynical motivation for those who said that it cannot. Now, ten years, four printings, and thirty thousand-plus copies later, I wonder if there is any reasonable support for the “it cannot be taught” position.

Most of us are talking less on the phone, and replacing that sound with a scrambling of our fingers on the keyboard or thumbs on our smartphones. I have nothing against these new-fangled inventions, but they have muted our voices.

Drop me into the forest with a pen and a small notepad, and I can write away. All Abraham Lincoln needed was the back of an envelope to compose one of the most famous speeches in history.