Kathmandu, March 16 -- Writing might seem like an art, but it is as much perseverance and hard work, countless hours of toiling late nights over books, reading and rereading. And then, countless more hours of writing then editing and rewriting. For young people, romantic in their conception of the writer, words come unbidden, and the writer, as if possessed by genius, is simply a vessel for something transcendent. When, in fact, the work of writing is very much immanent. It is Aristotle, not Plato. The writer is an artisan as much as an artist. Like in everything else, talent and skill have to be honed, sharpened and used, or else it will go rusty.
But even before we get to the point of putting our skills into practice, there is the long, ...