Frank Kogan

Ditto dickmalone, good writing is intimidating -- and usually what I consider good writing has little to do with how I write (Nabokov's got style to spare, but when and why would I want to write like him?) -- bad ideas are rant-inducing (but usually don't produce any great insight, though they often lead to trains of thought that do yield some insight)...good ideas are tricky, because it's hard not to just swipe them while yer prose stays dull.

Humor works for me, possibly in a journalistic vein, heavy on caricature -- Tom Sharpe and Carl Hiaasen can usually incite me to actually want to write, even if I don't know what about; in part it's because their flaws as writers are pretty evident -- no "sneaking suspicion" if something isn't working -- and, importantly, the flaws don't make it any less funny.