The Daily News
1 Sitting. Always sitting on nice afternoons.
2 Tabula Rasa.
3 The vacuum cranking loud.
4 Maren and Isla sound asleep, despite all the noise.
5 We've coffee brewing.
6 I'm reading up about the Niners.
7 I give them no chance. Gabbert will run for his life all Sunday afternoon.
8 Bleh.
9 Coffee. Good. Give. Me. Some.
10 Me want.
11 Ugh.
12 Moving On, Part One: I thought I might make it to San Jose this weekend, but plans changed.
13 They do that.
14 They do that.
15 So it is almost ten p.m. last night as I lay back in Le Luge and pound this stuff out.
16 Feeling pretty breezy.
17 I'm gonna knock on wood with this one, but the laptop appears to be cooperating.
18 No buffering, at least so far.
19 I have to jump in the ring and begin throwing rights and lefts.
20 The ball's in my court.
21 I have to run with it.
22
23 Okay, okay!
24 Feeling frivolous, no real reason. Call it whimsy.
25 'Bout to focus now.
26 So let's go.
27 Writing lesson on its way.
28 I designed it to roll at you fast, and to smack you one on the kisser.
29 I shall pummel you with one-syllable jabs.
30 And finish the job with head held high.
31 Grammar/Glamour etymology, or Stephen King dishing punishment?
32 Clark v. King.
33 No contest.
34 King.
36 Let's go.
37 A love letter from Stephen King, On Writing:
One learns most clearly what not to do by reading bad prose---one novel like Asteroid Miners, (or Valley of the Dolls, Flowers in the Attic, and The Bridges of Madison County, to name just a few) is worth a semester at a good writing school, even with the superstar guest lecturers thrown in.
Good writing, on the other hand, teaches the learning writer about style, graceful narration, plot development, the creation of believable, and truth-telling. A novel like The Grapes of Wrath may fill a new writer with feelings of despair, and old-fashioned jealousy---"I'll never be able to write anything that good, not if I live to be a thousand"---but such feelings can also serve as a spur, goading the writer to work harder and aim higher. Being swept away by a combination of great story and great writing---of being flattened, in fact---is part of every writer's necessary formation.You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.
So we read to experience the mediocre and the outright rotten; such experience helps us to recognize those things when they begin to creep into our own work, and to steer clear of them. We also read in order to measure ourselves against the good and the great, to get a sense of all that can be done. And we read to experience different styles.
You may find yourself adopting a style you find particularly exciting, and there's nothing wrong with that. When I read Ray Bradbury as a kid, I wrote like Ray Bradbury---everything green and wondrous and seen through the lens smeared with the grease of nostalgia. When I read James M. Cain, everything I wrote came out clipped and stripped and hard-boiled. When I read Lovecraft, my prose became luxurious and Byzantine. I wrote stories in my teenage years where all these styles merged, creating a kind of hilarious stew. This sort of stylistic blending is a necessary part of developing one's own style, but it doesn't occur in a vacuum. You have to read widely, constantly refining (and redefining) your own work as you do so. It's hard for me to believe that people who read very little (or not at all in some cases) should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written, but I know it's true. If I had a nickel for every person who told me he/she wanted to become a writer but "didn't have time to read," I could buy myself a pretty good steak dinner. Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write.Simple as that.
Reading is the creative center of a writer's life. I take a book with me everywhere I go, and find there are all sorts of opportunities to dip in. The trick is to teach yourself to read in small sips as well as in long swallows. Waiting rooms were made for books---of course! But so are theater lobbies before the show, long and boring checkout lines, and everyone's favorite, the john.
38 A very good place to end the piece. King goes on to other places to read, but I'm certain you get the gist.
39 Sometimes a line or phrase stops me. I look up, and I smile. I then think of times in my own youth when I would pull a pencil up from a piece of paper, a sweeping triumph when I landed something right.
40 I trust most people who write have those moments.
41 I enjoy reading people like Stephen King and Amy Tan and then guessing where they stopped and enjoyed the moment. It happens to everyone. King's wonderful phrase "creating a kind of hilarious stew" landed. It's a silly way to catch the reader, but he laid it down perfectly.
42 I've toyed with one-syllable words a lot since I read that concept. Never taught it.
43 I gave myself an assignment. I want to see me write using 60 to 80 per cent one-syllable words. I find it hard to do. Yet when I look, I see it helps make things more clear.
44 It flips the way one thinks, takes you out of your zone and tosses you into space.
45 Am I anti-vocab? Anyone who knows me knows the answer to that. Nope. I think vocabulary is the number one means of becoming a better reader. It teaches you tons of words you should never use. Gobbledygook runs rampant by people in business.
46 The stress of trying to impress causes business meetings to drone on and on.
47 I've gone around with math and science people who insist on confusion. I throw successful millionaire writers right back at them.
48 Dale Carnegie had this to say about arguments:
You can't win an argument, because if you lose, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it.
49 Well put.
50 I gottago. Hope you enjoyed this piece.
51 Have a great weekend.
52 See you again.
53 Peace.
11 Ugh.
12 Moving On, Part One: I thought I might make it to San Jose this weekend, but plans changed.
13 They do that.
14 They do that.
15 So it is almost ten p.m. last night as I lay back in Le Luge and pound this stuff out.
16 Feeling pretty breezy.
17 I'm gonna knock on wood with this one, but the laptop appears to be cooperating.
18 No buffering, at least so far.
19 I have to jump in the ring and begin throwing rights and lefts.
20 The ball's in my court.
21 I have to run with it.
22
23 Okay, okay!
24 Feeling frivolous, no real reason. Call it whimsy.
26 So let's go.
27 Writing lesson on its way.
28 I designed it to roll at you fast, and to smack you one on the kisser.
29 I shall pummel you with one-syllable jabs.
30 And finish the job with head held high.
31 Grammar/Glamour etymology, or Stephen King dishing punishment?
32 Clark v. King.
33 No contest.
34 King.
36 Let's go.
37 A love letter from Stephen King, On Writing:
One learns most clearly what not to do by reading bad prose---one novel like Asteroid Miners, (or Valley of the Dolls, Flowers in the Attic, and The Bridges of Madison County, to name just a few) is worth a semester at a good writing school, even with the superstar guest lecturers thrown in.
Good writing, on the other hand, teaches the learning writer about style, graceful narration, plot development, the creation of believable, and truth-telling. A novel like The Grapes of Wrath may fill a new writer with feelings of despair, and old-fashioned jealousy---"I'll never be able to write anything that good, not if I live to be a thousand"---but such feelings can also serve as a spur, goading the writer to work harder and aim higher. Being swept away by a combination of great story and great writing---of being flattened, in fact---is part of every writer's necessary formation.You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.
So we read to experience the mediocre and the outright rotten; such experience helps us to recognize those things when they begin to creep into our own work, and to steer clear of them. We also read in order to measure ourselves against the good and the great, to get a sense of all that can be done. And we read to experience different styles.
You may find yourself adopting a style you find particularly exciting, and there's nothing wrong with that. When I read Ray Bradbury as a kid, I wrote like Ray Bradbury---everything green and wondrous and seen through the lens smeared with the grease of nostalgia. When I read James M. Cain, everything I wrote came out clipped and stripped and hard-boiled. When I read Lovecraft, my prose became luxurious and Byzantine. I wrote stories in my teenage years where all these styles merged, creating a kind of hilarious stew. This sort of stylistic blending is a necessary part of developing one's own style, but it doesn't occur in a vacuum. You have to read widely, constantly refining (and redefining) your own work as you do so. It's hard for me to believe that people who read very little (or not at all in some cases) should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written, but I know it's true. If I had a nickel for every person who told me he/she wanted to become a writer but "didn't have time to read," I could buy myself a pretty good steak dinner. Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write.Simple as that.
Reading is the creative center of a writer's life. I take a book with me everywhere I go, and find there are all sorts of opportunities to dip in. The trick is to teach yourself to read in small sips as well as in long swallows. Waiting rooms were made for books---of course! But so are theater lobbies before the show, long and boring checkout lines, and everyone's favorite, the john.
38 A very good place to end the piece. King goes on to other places to read, but I'm certain you get the gist.
39 Sometimes a line or phrase stops me. I look up, and I smile. I then think of times in my own youth when I would pull a pencil up from a piece of paper, a sweeping triumph when I landed something right.
40 I trust most people who write have those moments.
41 I enjoy reading people like Stephen King and Amy Tan and then guessing where they stopped and enjoyed the moment. It happens to everyone. King's wonderful phrase "creating a kind of hilarious stew" landed. It's a silly way to catch the reader, but he laid it down perfectly.
42 I've toyed with one-syllable words a lot since I read that concept. Never taught it.
43 I gave myself an assignment. I want to see me write using 60 to 80 per cent one-syllable words. I find it hard to do. Yet when I look, I see it helps make things more clear.
44 It flips the way one thinks, takes you out of your zone and tosses you into space.
45 Am I anti-vocab? Anyone who knows me knows the answer to that. Nope. I think vocabulary is the number one means of becoming a better reader. It teaches you tons of words you should never use. Gobbledygook runs rampant by people in business.
46 The stress of trying to impress causes business meetings to drone on and on.
47 I've gone around with math and science people who insist on confusion. I throw successful millionaire writers right back at them.
48 Dale Carnegie had this to say about arguments:
You can't win an argument, because if you lose, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it.
49 Well put.
50 I gottago. Hope you enjoyed this piece.
51 Have a great weekend.
52 See you again.
53 Peace.
~H~
fin.
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