A veteran of WWII, William Zinsser was one of the first to give American writers advice that might be described as “touchy-feely.” In his classic On Writing Well, he says that he is most “interested in the intangibles that produce good writing – confidence, enjoyment, intention, integrity.” He identified attributes that weren’t even discussed in the writing textbooks of his day. Zinsser modeled his book on a book about music because “the subject of a book isn’t as important as the qualities of mind or personality that the writer brings to it.” What matters is the “integrity of your intentions.”
Zinsser, William. Writing to Learn. Harper & Row, 1988, p. 211.