Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be tired. Be confused. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don’t hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident.
– William Zinsser
Month: March 2021
haiku 516
trying to sleep –
passing truck rumbles
like thunder
Quotable 398
The use of language is all we have to pit against death and silence.
– Joyce Carol Oates
haiku 515
snatching the paper
off the front porch –
winter rain
Quotable 397
Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.
– Salvador Dali
haiku 514
winter night
lovesick cat yowls
outside my window
Quotable 396
Maybe the hardest thing in writing is simply to tell the truth about things as we see them.
– John Steinbeck
chill morning
cardinal hops
along a low branch
Quotable 395
The purpose of fiction is to affect rather than to convince the reader. Its object is to reach him through his senses rather than through his mind. The purpose of argumentation is to convince; the purpose of description is to present a picture; the purpose of exposition is to impart knowledge, ideas, facts: but the characteristic purpose of narrative in the fictional sense in which we are taking it here is to make the reader feel.
– Thomas H. Uzzell
haiku 512
four chirps –
light snowfall
begins