Making writing new involves using tools of metaphor, allusion syntax and multiple voice. These techniques are difficult for many students. Students ignore them because they believe them to be tools of fiction writers and poets. These tools help bring about your voice and style. If they were merely the tools of fiction writers and poets they would not be included in chapter two. Style evolves from experimentation. Many students find that doing the bare minimum is enough. Energy is another aspect.

According to Nathalie Goldberg, energy is where "our writing is burning through to brilliance that it finally becomes a poem or prose piece. And anyone can hear the difference. Something that comes from the source, from first thoughts, wakes and energizes everyone" (160). To be a master, you must exercise. No master becomes a master without constant practice. In a note Hokusai scribbled on one of his drawings, he said, "From the age of six I had a mania for drawing the forms of things. By the time I was fifty I had published an infinity of designs, but all I produced before the age of seventy is not worth taking into account. At seventy-three I learned a little about the real structure of nature of animals, plants trees birds and fishes and insects. In consequence, when I am eighty I shall have made still more progress" (Hokusai 20). I admire Hokusai. He believed he would not be a great master of art until he was over a hundred years old. He produced more paintings and work in his life than most men dream of. He was convinced that by the end of his life he had failed. We learn much from Hokusai. We learned that practice makes perfect and one need not die to believe their skill is worthless.

With this in mind, I tell you that you can write well. I would like you to believe that you are a good writer. All of you have made it this far, and with help you can go even farther. On the first day I have you write a diagnostic. In the past I have received many diagnostics telling me the student believes he does not write well. According to Bonnie Friedman: Successful Writers are not the ones who write the best sentences. They are the ones who keep writing. They are the ones who discover what is most important and strange and most pleasurable in themselves, and keep believing in the value of their work, despite the difficulties. (xiii)