{"product_id":"several-short-sentences-about-writingisbn-9780307279415","title":"Several Short Sentences About Writing","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn indispensable and distinctive book that will help anyone who wants to write, write better, or have a clearer understanding of what it means for them to be writing, from widely admired writer and teacher Verlyn Klinkenborg.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eKlinkenborg believes that most of our received wisdom about how writing works is not only wrong but an obstacle to our ability to write. In \u003ci\u003eSeveral Short Sentences About Writing\u003c\/i\u003e, he sets out to help us unlearn that “wisdom”—about genius, about creativity, about writer’s block, topic sentences, and outline—and understand that writing is just as much about thinking, noticing, and learning what it means to be involved in the act of writing. There is no gospel, no orthodoxy, no dogma in this book. Instead it is a gathering of starting points in a journey toward lively, lucid, satisfying self-expression.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for Verlyn Klinkenborg's \u003ci\u003eSeveral Short Sentences About Writing\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No other book, old or new, is as well reasoned as this, as entertaining or as wise. . . . Best book on writing. Ever. . . . To paraphrase Voltaire’s statement concerning the Almighty, ‘if Verlyn Klinkenborg did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.’ Because having read \u003ci\u003eSeveral Short Sentences About Writing\u003c\/i\u003e, I do not think that it would be possible to not have this book on hand. . . . Indeed, no other book is as filled with as much grounded, practical advice for putting words to the paper or electronic page or gives better, more helpful exercises.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eNew York Journal of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Powerful . . . each sentence miraculously contains an idea or insight that lesser writers would have milked for several pages.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePittsburgh Post-Gazette\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“An exceptionally interesting and useful book about writing.”\u003cbr\u003e—Tom McGuane\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A fresh perspective on writing that goes against conventional classroom theory.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Klinkenborg does away with much of the traditional wisdom on writing and dissects the sentence—its structure, its intention, its semantic craftsmanship—to deliver a new, useful, and direct guide to the art of storytelling.”\u003cbr\u003e—Brain Pickings\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Expertise and zeal are required for an established writer to offer genuinely useful guidance to aspiring writers. It also helps if the writer teaches writing, as Klinkenborg has for many years. . . . The result is a unique anatomy of the sentence and the writing mind and a clarifying and invigorating ‘book of first steps.’”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This is a very interesting little book about writing. Modest. Learned. Good-natured. Direct and sympathetic to its readers. You don't even have to read it front to back (probably you couldn't, anyway). You can just open it anywhere—as I did—and take away something useful.\"\u003cbr\u003e—Richard Ford\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“There have been good books on grammar and style, some classics, but none to compare to this one for understanding where sentences come from in the first place, where their vitality is found, and what distinguishes their energy,  their authenticity, and their prospects for life after birth—that is, the art of revision. This book's long future will be a testament to its author's principles.”\u003cbr\u003e—Tom McGuane\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eVerlyn Klinkenborg\u003c\/b\u003e is a member of the editorial board of \u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eNew York Times,\u003c\/i\u003e to which he also contributes meditations about his farm in upstate New York, collected in \u003ci\u003eThe Rural Life.\u003c\/i\u003e His other books include \u003ci\u003eMaking Hay,\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Last Fine Time,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eTimothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile.\u003c\/i\u003e Klinkenborg has a Ph.D. in English literature from Princeton University.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e*\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eYour job as a writer is making sentences.\u003cbr\u003eMost of your time will be spent making sentences in your head.\u003cbr\u003eIn your head.\u003cbr\u003eDid no one ever tell you this?\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThat\u003c\/i\u003e is the writer's life.\u003cbr\u003eNever imagine you've left the level of the sentence behind.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eMost of the sentences you make will need to be killed.\u003cbr\u003eThe rest will need to be fixed.\u003cbr\u003eThis will be true for a long time.\u003cbr\u003eThe hard part now is deciding which to kill and which\u003cbr\u003eto fix and how to fix them.\u003cbr\u003eThis will get much, much easier, but the decision making  will never end.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e*\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs you practice noticing, notice how thickly particled\u003cbr\u003ewith names the world around you is.\u003cbr\u003eThis will gradually become part of your noticing,\u003cbr\u003elooking not for words to make us see the way you saw--\u003cbr\u003eBut for the names of what you've noticed.\u003cbr\u003eNames that announce the whatness of the world to a single species.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eIt's hard to grasp at first the density, the specificity\u003cbr\u003eWith which the world has been named.\u003cbr\u003eThis is a planet of overlapping lexicons,\u003cbr\u003eGeneration after generation, trade after trade,\u003cbr\u003eExpedition after expedition sent out to bring home\u003cbr\u003eName upon name, terms of identity in endless degrees of intimacy,\u003cbr\u003eAnd all at hand, if you look for them.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e*\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eIn the syntax and rhythm of sentences,\u003cbr\u003eIn the page of thought, the intensity of movement,\u003cbr\u003eThe crescendo and decrescendo,\u003cbr\u003eThe trustworthy reader learns the writer's habitude and how to move with it.\u003cbr\u003eYou converse, in a sense, with the voice on the other side of the ink.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe kind of reading is the pleasure of being summoned out of ourselves by the grace,\u003cbr\u003eThe ferocity, the skill of the writing before us.\u003cbr\u003eHow else to explain our love of even difficult writers?\u003cbr\u003eTheir agility evokes our agility.\u003cbr\u003eWe move at their speed, elliptically, obliquely,\u003cbr\u003eHowever they move.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303003214053,"sku":"NP9780307279415","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307279415_31ed1537-926a-42a6-9dbf-2e6cfcff13a3.jpg?v=1730752707","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/several-short-sentences-about-writingisbn-9780307279415","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}