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Well, I am not 100 percent sure of the definition of polemic, but it wasn't meant to convince anybody of anything.

I'm not that comfortable doing polemic or being strident.

There's a half-conscious state you enter when you're actually generating prose, and you are simply a better writer in that place. In fact it's the only place where you even are a writer.

I'm not a very good writer. I'm working at it.

I got my degree in rhetoric.

In a newspaper, you only have so much room. It teaches you the value of getting to the point, of not pampering yourself with your glorious writing. I've always been much more interested in one powerful sentence that stays with you. That's my style.