Reviews of everywriter app2/19/2023 ![]() In the drawer of my desk, I keep mailing materials for my stack of chapbooks to sign and send to those who request it. Here’s my working writing desk, fit with all I need! I’ve got my laptop, notebooks, pens, reference books, books to review, and some of my favorite books that I keep near me for inspiration. ![]() And as I visit my friends who are writers, I notice some trends from desk to desk. And over the years, the kinds of references have grown to fit my own writerly needs. Whether I’m writing an academic paper, a cover letter, an author’s bio, a poem, a book review, or anything else, Strunk and White are there reminding me to be as clear as possible.Īs I continued to grow in my writing life, I found that other books became constant sources of aid and knowledge, so much so that my desk had its own section of books at the ready, for whatever obstacles befell a given blank page. Since that first reading encounter with The Elements of Style, my well worn copy has remained with me. From the seriousness came a great deal of humor. Amidst the seriousness in the rule there was a deep sense of snark. ![]() The first means “sickening to contemplate” the second means “sick to the stomach.” Do not, therefore, say, “I feel nauseous,” unless you are sure you have that effect on others.īesides thinking of the many times I had misused “nauseous”, I actually laughed out loud. Amid the section on misused words and expression, Strunk and White lay out the difference between nauseous and nauseated as follows: Such gravitas became most apparent to me when I arrived to page 52. The seriousness of tone and voice in these pages presents us with far more than a reference for grammar and usage, but rather, a true understanding of style in and of itself-that rhetoric is more than grammar and syntax, but a true translation of our consciousness into clear, material words. The Elements of Style is a reference book on the rules of English rhetoric, yes, but the attitude and dogma of its writers, Strunk and White, make it as much a manifesto as a convincing collection of laws governing the way we (ought to) speak and (must) write. I, on the other hand, found my attention rapt. Though the book is a mere 87 pages, my peers seemed to begrudge the assignment or blow it off entirely. I’d only ever used reference books like dictionaries, thesauruses, and encyclopedias as touchstones during reading and writing assignments-brief interruptions to expand my knowledge and/or revise my work.Upon reading Strunk and White’s masterpiece, however, my understanding of reference books changed entirely. It seemed strange to be assigned a reference book to read cover to cover. The Elements of Style, however, became an instant mainstay to my writerly temperament. The Scarlet Letter was forgotten as soon as it was finished I instantly detested Hawthorne’s penchant for moral allegories surrounding evil and sin, finding it all a bit too on-the-nose and heavy-handed. Tanimoto, assigned two books to incoming AP students: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. The summer before my junior year in high school, my soon-to-be teacher, Ms. “Take Three Nouns” is especially helpful for freewrites: The site selects three nouns at random (“fear, rope, pipe ” “death, cave, doll ” “disappointment, cheese, clock”) for writers to use as a jumping point for a work of fiction.Looking for the right advice on pursuing the writer’s life? You’ve come to the write place! ![]() This free site has a wealth of generative writing prompts, including Random First Line, Random Dialogue, and Town Name Generator. The results are fun but also surprisingly inspiring: Why not write an adventure story about a run-in with kleptopods, the site’s fictional word for “a terrestrial marsupial that readily collects water and stores it in the pupal stage,” or a yimba, “a small brown shark, with a reddish body and no tail?” Could the antagonist of your story be a proudhonir, or “a person, especially a male one, convicted of treason or numerous other offenses?” ![]() Refresh this page to see a brand-new word invented by AI, complete with a full definition and sample sentence. Add to Favorites Creativity & inspiration This Word Does Not Exist ![]()
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