Several short sentences on writing

This is the sort of book I usually hate. By law books about writing are so desperate to explain the world to me that I struggle to keep my eyes open. I don’t have much patience when I feel someone’s talking down to me, with them having figured the universe out already. Isn’t it always more exciting when a writer is on the tip of their toes just a half step ahead of you? When you’re invited to participate rather than being yelled at? Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several short sentences on writing slips into that mode from time to time but has enough useful advice to recommend it. Like this first banger: A writer’s real work is the endless winnowing of sentences, The relentless exploration of possibilities... Excellent, yes! But okay — how do you do that? The answer is simple. Your job as a writer is making sentences. That’s not earth-shattering advice, but it’s helpful for me. The size of a project can be overwhelming and cutting the problem up into sentences frees me from the burden of all…