the art of writing

Singing the counter-melody My advice and opinions may sound strange on their own. Do you know what musical counterpoint is? Underneath the main melody, you have a countermelody that goes against it, and together they make harmony. This is different from harmonizing, where someone sings along with the melody at an interval. The counter-melody is a s

You can almost always improve your writing by being more specific. Don’t write “I got in my car” when you can write “I got in my ‘65 Mustang.”

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Being smart means thinking things through. It means trying to fnd the real answer, not the easiest answer.

Don’t assume that the reader knows what you know. Rewind back to the beginning, and start over again. Make the whole experience human, and create a path that carries the ebbs and flows you felt when you first thought about it.

A writer could blast out her opinions, but writers are at their best not when they tell people what to think but when they provide a context within which others can think.

I write so I don't sound like an idiot when I speak." —Charlie Bleecker

If you update the language and some references, books written thousands of years ago sound like they could have been written today. The human condition remains the same. Your book has all the wisdom you need. Read metaphorically, and apply it to your modern life.

Removing excess words is good advice, but it ends up driving people to cut all the life from their writing until it becomes overly minimalistic. Don’t suck the life out of your writing in the name of grammar.

An empty white page is a mirror into your mind. When the ideas in your mind are clouded, so are the words on the page in front of you. Re-writing is re-thinking. It’s the best single best way to sharpen your ideas. And once your ideas are as clear as a Neiman Marcus mirror, you’ll be able to teach them to others.