Writing Honesty

Dear David,

In writing, whatever your style, if you wish to amass readership, of course your writing must be good. Namely that, the content is worthy, and the expression is attractive. From the point of view of the writer, besides being skillful with the pen and knowledgeable about the subjects, there is one principle integral to good writers, and that is honesty.

Here, honesty doesn't mean the WASP's various ethical or moral obsessions (e.g. justice, minding other's business, evil-seeking-and-killing, jesus christ), nor the OpenSouring criminals's various ethical facades for stealing.

Here, honesty means _true to oneself_. That is, whatever your style or writing, you must be true to yourself.

In your last message, you wrote: «In this followup we show you how to write this in lisp in a *short* way:». Now, consider from a reader's perspective. He (me), saw this line, and am eager to learn from the wondrous depth of knowledge where 3 lines suffices for my tens of lines of lisp. Though, after some ado, one realizes that the advertisement differs from truth. The 3-liner lisp turns out to be some entirely different thing. It's utility as employment to the subject matter, is conceivable but the author left it untouched.

So, the reader says, why am i deceived into spending time on something remotely relevant to the subject matter? There are far and wide other lisp subjects i read can read up if i wanted to.

The consequence of not being true-to-oneself in writing, is of course a alienation of readership. Because, the bottom line is that, the readers will eventually realize that they were duped, and ultimately find the writings a concoction of the writer's ego.

Appertain to you in question, perhaps you merely are inexperienced with hyperbole, or that your writing craftsmanship has not advanced into the awareness of honesty yet. Be this a advice then, and thank you for helping.