Every modern typographer agrees on the one-space rule. It’s one of the canonical rules of the profession, in the same way that waiters know that the salad fork goes to the left of the dinner fork and fashion designers know to put men’s shirt buttons on the right and women’s on the left.

Fascinating.

1. I’m going to hang out with Oot at least two hours every day. I’m going to make it a priority, rather than something I try to fit in around the edges of the other stuff I have going on in my life.

2. I’m going to do my damnedest to hang out with my friends at least twice a month for the express purpose of playing games, hanging out, watching movies, and just generally dicking around.

3. I’m going to start exercising at least three times a week. Because, y’know, I don’t really want to die from author-related sitting-on-my-ass-ness.

You must read this whole post.

His main regret at the moment, Mr. Hitchens said, was that while he was keeping up with his many deadlines — for Slate, The Atlantic and Vanity Fair — he didn’t have the energy to also work on a book. He had recently come up with some new ideas about his hero, George Orwell, for example — among them that Orwell might have had Asperger’s — and he said he ought to include them in a revised edition of his 2002 book, “Why Orwell Matters.” He had also thought of writing a book about dying. “It could be called ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting,’ ” he said, laughing.

Man I love this guy.

Common Sense^[1] is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine. It was first published anonymously on January 10, 1776, during the American Revolution. Common Sense, signed “Written by an Englishman”, became an immediate success.^[2] In relation to the population of the Colonies at that time, it had the largest sale and circulation of any book in American history.

I just finished this essay. It’s stunning to read this and imagine the time (1776). It reminds me much of The Prince, which I’m about to finish, and desperately makes me want to visit Boston.

For those who have commented that the reason the book is awful is because I don’t describe, or my language is so very direct and plain, I must point out that there are several stylistic traditions available to a writer. I, for one, have little patience with writers who show off and try to dazzle readers with their language. The style I choose to use has been called “The American Plain Style,” in which the author tries to become as invisible as possible, bringing the reader to see things as if experiencing them along with the character, instead of having a writer constantly commenting and interrupting the flow of the story. Moreover, ever since my days as a playwright I have preferred the bare stage to a realistic set: I found that the less I put on the stage, the more the audience would imagine a much more compelling set than I could ever build. Likewise, in my fiction I describe only as much as is asbsolutely necessary in order to understand what is going on; the rest, the readers create in their own imagination, if they’re willing to use it. I try never to describe anything that the point-of-view character would not notice, because such extraneous descriptions take you out of the story. However, when I find it necessary I do describe, and when it is useful (especially at moments of denouement or release) I use more evocative language; some of my story endings (though not Ender’s Game) are written as blank verse, though of course I run the lines together so as not to distract the reader. I am also constantly aware of the sound and rhythm of the language, so that it flows and remains pronounceable, since at an unconscious level readers all “read aloud” even if their lips don’t move – the written word is inexorably tied to the spoken.

In short, there are many aspects to style, and while those who complain about the style of Ender’s Game are entitled to their preferences, it’s rather parochial to condemn a book because the author is following a stylistic tradition with which they are unfamiliar. Of course, they are hardly to be blamed for this, since so many literature teachers in American colleges and universities teach as if there were only one way to write well, and one kind of story worth telling.

Excellent.

Everyone is unique – but Christopher is preternatural. And it may even be that he exactly inverts the Nabokovian paradigm. He thinks like a child (that is to say, his judgments are far more instinctive and moral-visceral than they seem, and are animated by a child’s eager apprehension of what feels just and true); he writes like a distinguished author; and he speaks like a genius. As a result, Christopher is one of the most terrifying rhetoricians that the world has yet seen. Lenin used to boast that his objective, in debate, was not rebuttal and then refutation: it was the “destruction” of his interlocutor. This isn’t Christopher’s policy – but it is his practice.

Agreed on all points.

I am creating this page about the ümlaut because every single time I attempt to write the word “über” I need to go and find one. Well, no more. From now on I’ll come here.

ü
97 (hex)
151 (dec)

Ü
9A (hex)
154 (dec)

It’s a page for ümlauts.

CopyBlogger put together a list of five tips gleaned from Hemingway’s classic terse style that offer a handy lesson in effective writing.

1. Stick to short sentences.
2. Use short opening paragraphs.
3. Use vigorous English.
4. Stick to the more positive-sounding word
5. Four rules isn’t enough

I need to aggregate all these together some day. I have a ton of them in various posts.

Over the last 6 years, I’ve come to believe deeply in the idea that that becoming a great programmer has very little to do with programming. Yes, it takes a modicum of technical skill and dogged persistence, absolutely. But even more than that, it takes serious communication skills:

The difference between a tolerable programmer and a great programmer is not how many programming languages they know, and it’s not whether they prefer Python or Java. It’s whether they can communicate their ideas. By persuading other people, they get leverage. By writing clear comments and technical specs, they let other programmers understand their code, which means other programmers can use and work with their code instead of rewriting it. Absent this, their code is worthless.

Conceptualization + Articulation. These are the key to effectiveness in everything.

The door caved in with a cloud of dust, and Keltonin rolled as splinters and rusted nails rained down on him. A dozen young female creatures, initiates of the unholy arts, surrounded him in the chamber, circling around their blue flames candlestands, baring their odd fish teeth, gaping at the adventurer with vicious, glazed over eyes that sparked an odd purple reflection from within. The prince noticed high above him the red vined, and blue petalled flowers pulsing in a silver glow to each surge of the monstrous women, who in turns took a step, flexed their taloned fingertips and retreated with a hiss.

Keltonin’s blade Eiglif, blessed and cursed by the arts of his mother’s homeland, came loose in the scabbard and stuck to it’s master’s palm, and through this touch the warrior felt the hunger for death and justice. The sweat on his skin, all across his skin and under his plate armor and chainmail, was like the air under a thundering sky, and his foes understood the storm he brought with him.

His eyes narrowed, his toes dug in, his breath quickened, his muscles paced to outrun and eat his way to the heart of a stag, and he grinned.

This was going to be a slaughter the likes any butcher would applause, with an skill and frolic any minstrel’s wife could laugh and dance to. If Keltonin was going to live, or die, he was going to enjoy this next battle with a vim and vigor he shall never forget.

Some writing from my friend Tim. I’ve been encouraging him to get all his stories online for years, and I’m committed to prodding him until this takes place.

It’s sad to me, in the age of self-publishing on the Internet, to have writing live only in the mind of the writer. Put it to paper. Share it. The world will be better for it. ::

Fish is something of a sentence connoisseur, and he says writing a fine sentence is a delicate process — but it’s a process that can be learned. He laments that many educators approach teaching the craft the wrong way — by relying on rules rather than examples.

Analyzing great sentences “will tell you more about … what you can possibly hope to imitate than a set of sterile rules that seem often impossibly abstract,” Fish tells NPR’s Neal Conan.

A good sentence may be easy to pick out, but learning to understand what makes it great, says Fish, will help a student become a stronger writer and a “better reader of sentences.”

Read Hitchens. It’ll school you.

Committing grammatical errors in business writing is like having body odor during a business meeting. Some may be able to look past it–or even fail to notice–but others might end the relationship immediately because of assumptions they’ll make about everything else about you.

You never know which it’s going to be, so it’s best to shower.

My new grammar project.

There were 79 degree-granting programs in creative writing in 1975; today, there are 854! This explosion has created a huge source of financial support for working writers, not just in the form of lecture fees, adjunctships, and temporary appointments—though these abound—but honest-to-goodness jobs: decently paid, relatively secure compared to other industries, and often even tenured. It would be fascinating to know the numbers—what percentage of the total income of American fiction writers comes from the university, and what percentage from publishing contracts—but it’s safe to say that the university now rivals, if it hasn’t surpassed, New York as the economic center of the literary fiction world.

1. Write often – you won’t get better at writing without spending a lot of time writing
2. Review your own writing – You’ll get better quicker if you deliberately look to improve
3. Read often – exposing yourself to great writing will provide

Do this for a few years and you will be, at the very least, a good writer. This will benefit not only your businesses, but all areas of your life.

Great advice for all of us.

Bruce does his job best when he plants his seeds before you’ve even begun.  Hell, an hour ago I was staring at this blank page, thinking how I wasn’t in the mood to write today.  I spent 18 of the last 24 hours in bed with chills and fever. I was tired.  The chair is uncomfortable on my achy body.  I don’t know what to write.

The fact is, Bruce’s job is easiest if he catches you early.  Now, with half a page of writing, his job is much harder.  Look for him to show up early, and often.  One of your best defenses is to start.

So I got a blanket.  Made some tea.  Put a pillow on the chair.  And started typing.

I’m not going to defeat Bruce with a single post.  I’m not even going to totally call him out.

But I’m going to keep looking for him.  Because he’s there.  The secret mastermind behind all the times I lose and don’t have to.  Because I am not a creature barely struggling to survive.  I am a creator, an artist, a man of virtue and greatness.  Anyone who opposes that is my enemy.  And he will be defeated.