Before he won the Pulitzer Prize a couple years ago, Washington Post writer extraordinaire Henry Allen used to participate at Poynter Institute writing seminars. I was lucky to go to one.
At that session, he started out by talking about "power writing."
"When you do it right, it should hit you down there,'' he said, indicating toward his naughty, bulbous parts.
"When you write something good, it should make you go, "Ohhhhhhhhh, yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh.''
Then we all stepped out for a cigarette.
That said, I imagine Mark Morford gets that moist, tingly feeling a lot. He's so good of a writer that about half of what he writes pisses me off - and I still can't resist his writing.
Anyway, it's good to see Mark get a little love from the brainiacs at Poynter. This analysis/Q&A is a fun read.
My favorite part:
The world is full of dry facts that lie on your spiritual plate like a slab of old ham. Very simply, I write in a style I want to read, that turns me on. In short, writing that is (hopefully) wry and sexy and fun and incendiary and thoughtful and winking and open-thighed and highly literate and well-informed and self-deprecating and well-lubricated and happy to buy you a drink. I aim to be a writer first and journalist, well, about 27th, right after idea-monger and trickster and contrarian and satirist and pro-sex advocate and wine enthusiast and dog lover and book fan and clothes junkie and yoga teacher and tattoo advocate and spiritual deviant and did I mention the part about the sex? Boring writing makes my soul curdle.
In other words, "Ohhhhhhhhh, yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh.''