take a few deep breaths, put your pulse rate into second gear, and deliver a supply of oxygen to the brain.

Style is your writing. It is inexorably knotted to the content of your words and the nature of you.

To write is to create music. The words you write make sounds, and when those sounds are in harmony, the writing will work.

People is the one subject that everybody cares about.

Style is not something you can put onto your writing like a new set of clothes. Style is your writing. It is inexorably knotted to the content of your words and the nature of you.

For the writer of average intelligence and education, learning new words is much less important than learning to use easily the words he or she already knows.

A lead should be provocative. It should have energy, excitement, an implicit promise that something is going to happen or that some interesting information will be revealed. It should create curiosity, get the reader asking questions.

do not pour the clay of your thoughts into the hard mold of some personal writing style that you are determined to have.

You cannot write securely on any subject unless you have gathered far more information than you will use.