Some wise words about writing and thinking:
Now, any man who can think can write. Writing is merely recording. If a man has anything to record, writing can record it.
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, “I have an idea but I can’t express it”; that man hasn’t an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit.
–Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske (February 1919)
Oh yes, anyone who can put cogent thoughts together can write. However, it may take the services of an editor to make those thoughts clear to the audience!
Susan,
Absolutely.
I think of it this way: You can learn to golf by reading a book and then grabbing a set of clubs and heading out to the course. But how fast will you learn, and how good can you get doing it all by yourself? And how much faster could you learn, and how much better could you get with a good coach helping you?
That’s what a good editor is: a coach.