What is it like to learn English as an adult in order to practise your profession of... novelist?

I did everything I could to avoid Dunglish, the unintentional but often funny mistakes Dutch speakers make in English. I had to stop myself from saying nonsensical things such as “let’s fall with the door into the house,” which is what we say in Dutch when we mean “skip the non-essentials.”

Trying to write in English was even worse. It required more than knowing the correct words to name things, the right prepositions, the difference between “come” and “get.” Writing is about sending a message, with all the nuance I intend. I wondered about tone and voice, the landscape upon which readers and I need to find common ground. I struggled to express myself in a way that would establish a shared intimacy with my readers. I felt vulnerable and worried about being misunderstood.

That is Pia de Jong, a Dutch novelist expressing herself admirably in what, to her, is a foreign language. De Jong, who now lives in America, wrote this heart-felt piece in The Washington Post a week ago, attracting a variety of comments. Here are just a couple:

CURMUDGEON: "Excellent. And today in the paper, we also have a story about an English teacher in DC Schools trying to teach the 'best and the brightest' how to write a five-sentence paragraph. Many don't know what a 'subject' and a 'verb' is. And this all in their native language, allegedly." 

SEMARI1: "What a wonderful piece. Thanks so much for it. I speak, in varying abilities, English (native), French, Italian, German, some Japanese, modern Greek, Hebrew... and I find I tend to have something of a different personality in each of them — as if the modalities and idiomatic aspects of them liberate, in each case, something new about myself that surprises me. Merely from reading your English it would appear your adopted language will certainly lead to continued marvellous results."

Read Pia de Jong's article in its entirety here: "A novelist learns to write".

And if you want an expert's views on what it means to write English as a second language, then check out "In one place, everything you need to know about writing in English".

• ADDITIONAL READING: "Want to learn how to write a sentence? (Who doesn’t?)"

If you want to understand what journalism should be...

...and if you want to know what journalism can be, read this great book — by a great writer — about one of the world's great newspapers:

Follow it up with this terrific piece in Vanity Fair: "A New Kingdom: Gay Talese Sounds Off on The New York Times — Past, Present, and Future".

Here's an appetiser — an excerpt from Gay Talese's response to the first question he is asked in the Vanity Fair interview:

GAY TALESE

Journalism is for the young. Young people who go into journalism as a calling are entering, I think, the most worthwhile profession that is possible, and the reason I say that is that there is no profession or industry or calling that tries very hard to tell the truth and to sell the truth and to make the truth make money. The truth is hard, first of all, to get. And harder still to communicate. And more hard to make money on!

• You will also want to read the new book that again puts journalism and The New York Times front and centre: Page One: Inside The New York Times and the Future of Journalism (edited by David Folkenflik), and follow that up by watching the documentary on which the book is based.

• Afterwards, visit the official Gay Talese website here and learn more about the work of this legendary journalist and novelist.

• ADDITIONAL READING:

"Journalism: The best job in the world", by Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Editor Bill Keller on how The New York Times chooses Page 1 stories, from a brilliant series in the Times, "Talk to the Newsroom"

The amazing books that made me fall in love with journalism all over again 

• UPDATE (April 23, 2014): Amazon has just delivered Honor Thy Father, Gay Talese's bestseller about one of America's most notorious Mafia families. According to one critic, no other book has done more to acquaint readers with the secrets, structure, wars, power plays, family lives, and fascinating, frightening personalities of the Mafia. Honor Thy Father will be placed in the Commits library... soon.

"How writing for our college newspaper helped me land a job"

• FROM THE COMMITS CHRONICLE ARCHIVES (May 23, 2010)

When Commits alumna Mallika Harsha (Class of 2010), was hired by Saatchi&Saatchi as a copywriter in Bangalore, she told me excitedly over the phone: "My articles in YO helped me get the job!" Afterwards she wrote this e-mail to me (YO, or Your Opinion, was the name of the college newspaper till July 2011, when it was changed to The Chronicle):

"THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME

LAND A JOB AS A COPYWRITER"

I owe this to you. Thank you for helping me overcome my fear of writing.

In my opinion, this is my personal fairytale. A modern-day fairytale of course, but a fairytale nonetheless. And I'm taking a chance with writing about it in the Chronicle knowing full well that after having painted such a rosy picture I can't complain about it later, but that's a choice I've already made, I suppose.

Okay, so since it's a modern-day fairytale, let's give the once-upon-a-times and happily-ever-afters a skip. I'm not going to build suspense and reveal it all at the end and neither am I going to take you through the emotionally draining journey till I actually got to the point of writing about it for the Chronicle.

So, the point being: I recently bagged a job at Saatchi&Saatchi. (They haven't given me a designation yet, but it'll most probably be that of copywriter).

When Saatchi called me for an interview, I wasn't expecting to be hired. The interview lasted an hour in which I spoke for 20 minutes and got grilled for the next 40. At the end of which I was told to write a copy test the next day. So, there I was again at the Saatchi office, expecting to spend the next couple of hours writing essay-type questions.

Flashback

I had already sent them a profile of the work I did at my previous job. And earlier that day, I was asked by the creative head to send them all the other work I had done (written work to be precise) like articles and other published work. I had nothing but YO articles to send (which also I found on my email with great difficulty because I wasn't carrying any of it around with me), and I did that — sent the few articles I could find. And the rest of the time, I spent mentally preparing myself for the gruelling test that evening.

Back to the office scene

I was asked to sit in a cabin. I was waiting to be administered the copy test. Then the creative director walked in and said, "I went through your articles. Why didn't you send these to us before?" I didn't know what to say. Even I couldn't think of a good enough reason.  What he said after this is what makes me proud to relate this story at all.

He said based on what he had read he would skip the copy test!

Saatchi&Saatchi did not take a copy test based on my YO work! I was stumped, so much so that when he told me they'd like me to join them, I burst out laughing — to his face (I got an earful for that too, but that's a different story).

I'm going to be under probation for a while, in which time I'm supposed to "show them what I'm made up of" — that's what they've told me. Too good to be true? I think so too. There has to be a catch, na? But I'm ready to take this on! It's "my big break" (as Sai Sir put it), so I'm going to put in my all to prove myself here.

I'm glad I wrote for YO while I was in college, it was great learning for me and I loved it. I'm glad I could use such a platform to get the job I had only dreamt of. Thank you would just be an understatement for all the support I've got so far. So, I'm just going to sign off  here, 'cause the longer this email gets, the more people will want to hunt me down and chase me.

I'm so proud and high on confidence right now that if I wrote any more, I'd just be bragging. So, I'm going to stop here, just glad I could share my experience.

Regards,
Mallika

ALSO FROM THE COMMITS CHRONICLE ARCHIVES: The November-December 2009 issue of Your Opinion, or YO, was a fabulous 10-pager, the first in Commits history. That was an opportune moment, therefore, to ask past co-editors and current editorial board members to share their thoughts on the issue and also to reflect on how YO has evolved over the years, from a black-and-white “lab journal” to a professional college newspaper, the “jewel in the Commits crown”, as our website refers to it. It was also an occasion to think about how the students’ involvement with YO has benefited them. Read what they all have to say here: "Jai YO!"

Why I'm reading — and enjoying — the first volume of the Paris Review Interviews

"The Paris Review books should be given out at dinner parties, readings, riots, weddings, galas — shindigs of every shape. And they're perfect for the classroom too, from high schools all the way to MFA programmes. In fact, I run a whole semester-long creative writing class based on the interviews. How else would I get the world's greatest living writers, living and dead, to come into the classroom with their words of wisdom, folly, and fury? These books are wonderful, provocative, indispensible." — Colum McCann, novelist and Hunter College professor

***
"I have all the copies of The Paris Review and like the interviews very much. They will make a good book when collected and that will be very good for the Review." — Ernest Hemingway

***
"At their best, the Paris Review interviews remove the veils of literary personae to reveal the flesh-and-blood writer at the source. By exposing the inner workings of writing, they place the reader in the driver's seat of literature." — Billy Collins

***
"A colossal literary event — worth the price of admission for the Borges interview alone, and of course the Billy Wilder, and the Vonnegut, and and and and . . . Just buy this book and read it all." — Gary Shteyngart

***
"The Paris Review interviews have the best questions, the best answers, and are, hands down, the best way to steal a look into the minds of the best writers (and interviewers) in the world. Reading them together is like getting a fabulous guided tour through literary life." — Susan Orlean 

***
"I have been fascinated by the Paris Review interviews for as long as I can remember. Taken together, they form perhaps the finest available inquiry into the 'how' of literature, in many ways a more interesting question than the 'why.'" — Salman Rushdie

***
"Nothing is lonelier or riskier than being a writer, and these interviews provide writers at all stages the companionship and guidance they need." — Edmund White

***
"The Paris Review interviews have always provided the best look into the minds and work ethics of great writers and when read together constitute the closest thing to an MFA that you can get while sitting alone on your couch. Every page of this collection affords a ludicrous amount of pleasure." — Dave Eggers

• What is the Paris Review? To learn all about the literary magazine that was first published in 1953, go here.

• UPDATE (JULY 24, 2013): The second volume of The Paris Review interviews was delivered by Amazon this evening. So much to read, so little time. Sigh.

• ADDITIONAL READING: "Why the writer should be considered the "hero" of a film, any film", excerpts from a Paris Review interview with Oscar-winning director Billy Wilder.

It feels as though I have unearthed a gold mine and discovered a time machine at the same time: When reading a book becomes an experience of a lifetime

History, be it fact or fiction (!), fascinates me. One of my all-time favourite books is Travels with Herodotus, by the legendary Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski. I have also enjoyed the sagas written by James Michener and James Clavell. And every now and then I dip into I Wish I'd Been There: Twenty Historians Revisit Key Moments in History.

So how could I not order A History of the World in 100 Objects from Flipkart after I first chanced upon the book at a Reliance TimeOut store? (It's called "showrooming", Reliance. Get used to it.)

For more than a fortnight now, whenever I have had the time, I have been obsessively reading up on each of the historical objects described intelligently and — yes — lovingly by Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum.

A History of the World in 100 Objects, which is based on the BBC Radio 4 programme of the same name, is such a treat that I find myself re-reading almost every chapter.

---
DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT
"This wonderful book transports us to every corner of the globe." — TOM HOLLAND, OBSERVER
---

And, after I am done with each chapter — I am a quarter of the way through the book, object by object, one object to a chapter — I head over to the BBC site dedicated to the programme. Here I can listen to the original radio programme, go through the transcript, examine the selected object in glorious colour, read additional comments by experts, study relevant timelines... it feels as though I have unearthed a gold mine and discovered a time machine at the same time.

---
DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT
"Vivid and witty, shining with insights, connections, shocks, and delights." — GILLIAN REYNOLDS, DAILY TELEGRAPH
---

From beginning to middle to end, each chapter fairly radiates energy. Neil MacGregor tells the story in so vivid a style that I keep asking myself: How does he do it?

For instance, MacGregor has to come up with a hundred different chapter introductions; he has to meld historical facts and dates with his own interpretations and understanding; he has to incorporate the views of experts; he has to explain why each object is important in today's context; and he has to come up with a hundred different chapter endings.

And, this is perhaps just as important, he has to make it interesting for the reader from first word to last. 

---
DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT
"One can only remain grateful to Neil MacGregor for inviting us, his readers, on this wonderful journey." — RUDRANGSHU MUKHERJEE, THE TELEGRAPH, KOLKATA 
---

Let us take, at random, a few opening lines (not the entire first paragraph):

OLDUVAI STONE CHOPPING TOOL (1.8-2 MILLION YEARS OLD): "This chopping tool is one of the earliest things that humans ever consciously made, and holding it puts us directly in touch with those who made it."

OLDUVAI HANDAXE (1.2-1.4 MILLION YEARS OLD): "What do you take with you when you travel? Most of us would embark on a long list that begins with a toothbrush and ends with excess baggage."

CLOVIS SPEAR POINT (11000 BC): "Imagine. You're in a green landscape studded with trees and bushes. You're working in a team of hunters quietly stalking a herd of mammoths. One of the mammoths, you hope, is going to be your supper."

PARACAS TEXTILE (300-200 BC): "Looking at clothes is a key part of any serious look at history. But, as we all know to our cost, clothes don't last — they wear out, they fall apart, and what survives gets eaten by the moths. Compared with stone, pottery, or metal, clothes are pretty well non-starters in a history of the world told through 'things'." 

CHINESE ZHOU RITUAL VESSEL (1100-1000 BC): "How often do you dine with the dead?" 

There is plenty to learn, too. An arbitrary example:

LACHISH RELIEFS (700-692 BC): The strategy of shifting populations has been a constant phenomenon of empire ever since [the time of King Sennacherib, the Assyrian ruler]. Perhaps our nearest equivalent — just about in living memory — is Stalin's deportation of peoples during the 1930s. Like Sennacherib, Stalin knew the value of moving rebellious peoples out of strategic areas and relocating them far away from their homelands.

And here's the concluding paragraph from the same chapter:

Sennacherib was not quite as bad as Stalin. Cold comfort for the victims. The Lachish Reliefs show the misery that defeat in war always entails, though of course their main focus is ... Sennacherib in his moment of triumph. They do not record Sennacherib's less than glorious end — assassinated by two of his sons while he was at prayer to the gods who had appointed him ruler. He was succeeded by another son, whose own son, in his turn, conquered Egypt and defeated the pharaoh Taharqo, who is the subject of the next chapter. The cycle of war that Lachish Reliefs show — brutal, pitiless, and devastating for the civilian population — was about to begin all over again. 

Oh joy! I have waiting for me another 75 chapters bursting with such scintillating writing.

---
DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT
Mary Beard reviews A History of the World in 100 Objects in The Guardian: "Brilliant on radio, Neil MacGregor's 100 objects also make a marvellous book".

Death to the adjective! (Or so say some of the great writers)

When you catch an adjective, kill it. 
~ MARK TWAIN

*

The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech.
 ~ CLIFTON FADIMAN

*

The adjective is the enemy of the noun.
~ VOLTAIRE

*

If the noun is good and the verb is strong, you almost never need an adjective.
~ J. ANTHONY LUKAS

*

Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers “Please will you do my job for me?”
~ C.S. LEWIS

*

Forward motion in any piece of writing is carried by verbs. Verbs are the action words of the language and the most important. Turn to any passage on any page of a successful novel and notice the high percentage of verbs. Beginning writers always use too many adjectives and adverbs and generally use too many dependent clauses. Count your words and words of verbal force (like that word “force” I just used).
~ WILLIAM SLOANE

• This is just a tiny sample of the wealth of writerly wisdom available on possibly the best website ever for writers looking for advice, "Advice to Writers", curated by author Jon Winokur. (Winokur also has an interesting post on Huffington Post on the best books on writing books. Check it out here.)

• ALSO READ: "Too many adjectives, adverbs, and subsidiary clauses are the death of good writing"

If great stories bring people together, then Wattpad helps people bring great stories together

Wattpad, the app I discovered on Amazon and installed on my Kindle Fire last week, gives writers (well-known and unknown) a ready-made platform to publish their stories.

Canada's most famous author, Margaret Atwood, is a Wattpad fan. Not surprising considering Wattpad is based in Toronto, Canada. But it is surprising considering Atwood is a writer with considerable gravitas and an unlikely champion of an online story-sharing site that is, as she put it herself in a piece she wrote for the Guardian, "heavy on romance, vampires and werewolves".

Let Atwood explain why she is all for Wattpad:

On Wattpad — using your computer, tablet or phone — you can post your own writing. No one need know how old you are, what your social background is, or where you live. Your readers can be anywhere.... You'll have readers who leave encouraging comments on your message board, thus boosting your morale.

Atwood then tells us what it was like for young writers of her pre-internet, pre-Wattpad generation:

We put together little booklets with our writing in them — our handwriting — for a readership of two: our parents. We went on to place an ill-advised poem or story in the school yearbook, to the secret derision of our classmates. We had to use our real names, which meant that many of us hid our most heartfelt writing in our sock drawers.

Atwood also dispels the notion that young people aren't reading but playing video games instead:

You don't get that impression from Wattpad, possibly because the site emulates features of video games: participation. Like Dickens during his serial publication of Pickwick, Wattpad writers get feedback from readers, and may shape their stories accordingly.

Read Margaret Atwood's article in its entirety here and then head on over to Wattpad to discover the kind of stories that you love to read. And if you're a writer or harbour hopes of becoming one (as do a few of our students), let Wattpad help the world discover your talent.

• ADDITIONAL READING: Wattpad in the Washington Post: "Wattpad gives writers a place online to tell their stories".

• UPDATE (June 13, 2013): Commitscion Ashwin Shanker (Class of 2015), an avid storyteller who read my post on Wattpad, has drawn my attention to another story-sharing site: "I checked out Wattpad and I have created an account," Ashwin wrote in an e-mail. "I felt it's more like Readwave, which I'm a member of. I have published all my work on Readwave and keep getting good response from the international community. My Readwave profile can be accessed here. All my short stories and a few poems have been published on this site."

• UPDATE (June 21, 2013): Here are two other short-story websites I discovered recently: East of the Web and Five Chapters.
  

How to spot lazy a.k.a. mediocre travel writing

Travel writing seems easy: Go there, do that, write about it (and don't forget to sprinkle the superlatives among the facts and figures).

But there is good travel writing. And there is lazy travel writing.

Now Peter Greenberg, travel editor of American broadcaster CBS News, has helpfully provided 10 top tips on how to spot — and avoid — lazy travel writing. Here they are in bullet-point form:

1. Most Travel Writers Are Not Journalists

2. Most of Them Aren't Good Writers

3. They Are More Focused on the Fact They Got to Travel Than Why They Are Traveling

4. They Are More Focused on the Destination Than the Experience

5. Most of the Pieces Written Are Based on Price, Not Value — or Cost, Not Worth

6. So Much of Travel Writing Reads Like Bad Brochures

7. Most Travel Writing is Obsessed with Product, Not Process

8. Tell Me Something I Don't Know

9. Introduce Me to Someone I Don't Know, But Should

10. Stop with the Lists!

Read Greenberg's trenchant post in its entirety here: "The 10 Problems I Have with Lazy Travel Writing".

• For what it's worth, here's the link to one of my travel pieces, which was published in the Khaleej Times after my return from a visit to Malaysia: "Blast from the past: Travels in Malaysia". I shudder to think what Peter Greenberg would have made of it.

• And, again, for what it is worth, the two most absorbing travel books I own and have read are Travels with Herodotus, by the great Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski, who began his life as a foreign correspondent in India, and Paul Theroux's The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific, the only travel book I have read twice.

"If there’s any degree employers should value when hiring for a writing or editing job, it’s one in journalism, or mass communication"

Mark Nichol, editor of the Daily Writing Tips blog, has expressed surprise, in a recent post, over a job listing that "[perpetuates] the absurd notion that a degree in English — or literature, for God’s sake — is the ideal preparation for work as a writer or editor".

There can be some merit, Nichol writes, in having earned an English degree, but English majors do not necessarily master composition, much less the finer points of grammar, syntax, usage, punctuation, style, and the other components of writing, and revision of assigned papers is of little use in acquiring editing skills.

Nichol then asks an important question:

What academic preparation, then, should students — and employers — value?

Read Nichol's post in its entirety here to know the answer.

• ALSO READ: "Media education: From course structure to quality of students, the challenges are immense".

Scintillating analysis of Roger Ebert's film review intros

Any experienced writer can master the short snappy sentence.  It takes a good writer to master the long sentence, the one that takes the reader on a journey of discovery, the one that leads you to a special place you could not have imagined when you stepped on board the bus.

That is Roy Peter Clark, a brilliant journalist and writer himself, paying tribute to Roger Ebert by explaining why he thought the late film critic was a good writer.

Good? Why not "great"? Clark writes:

Notice I am not using the word “great” because good is good enough, especially if you’ve been good for more than forty years.

And then Clark examines the intros, what he calls "leads", from the first three examples of Ebert's work that he could find online.

Read Clark's post in its entirety here to understand why I am saying this is a scintillating piece of writing from which media students, journalists, and people who simply love reading good writing can learn plenty.

PS: Don't miss the punchline — Roy Peter Clark gets a zinger from Roger Ebert.

ADDITIONAL READING: "Point your mouse to Poynter".

ALSO READ: "Roger Ebert: A film critic like no other".

If you want just one "golden rule" of writing...

...and a very good one, too, here it is:

Intend every word you write.

This is the golden rule formulated by veteran blogger Eric Cummings, who has written a guest post on the subject of writing rules for Write to Done, a blog about the art and craft of writing.

Cummings says he came up with this rule, or, rather, he learned it on the second day of the creative writing class he was taking, as his story about a farmer and his mule was read aloud.

I had spent some time writing it, one day rewriting it, and another afternoon editing it. I was nervous but confident. It was a good story.

The story began, “Light barely flooded into the room.”

“Wait.” Less than a sentence in, the Professor stopped the student reading my story. He turned to me, “Eric, what do you mean, ‘Light barely flooded into the room.’?”

“Well, it is sunrise, and the sun is coming up.” I said.

“But how can light ‘barely flood’ in? Do you mean the word flood?”

Light could either barely trickle in, or flood in, but it couldn’t do both. The lesson wasn’t that I needed to be clearer and more precise with my language–though I did–it was that I didn’t know what my words meant. I didn’t own the words on the page. The questions the professor asked us over the course of the quarter were always the same, “What do you mean?” “What did you intend here?” or “Why did you use this word?”

And so Cummings learned that writers must intend every word they write.

Read his enriching post here. (Enriching? Yes, you will come away feeling richer.)

In the same post, Cummings also provides seven tips for what he refers to as implementing intentionality behind your writing, to better convey what you want to say. Pay special attention to No. 2 and No. 7.

• Also, check out the "Popular Posts" list on the Write to Done site.

• ADDITIONAL READING: From the Daily Writing Tips blog — 10 Techniques for More Precise Writing and from Ali Luke's blog — Eight Secrets Which Writers Won’t Tell You.

"A good day job takes the pressure off the writing"

Abraham Verghese, the author of Cutting for Stone and other best-selling books, is also a full-time physician and professor of medicine. How does he manage both careers?

Verghese, pictured left, writes in a column for The Washington Post that when he is asked for writing advice, he offers this:

Get a good day job, one that you love, preferably one that consumes you and that puts your boat out in the river of life. Then be passionate about it, give it your all, get good at what you do. All that gives you plenty to write about, and it also takes the pressure off the writing. Counting on writing to pay the mortgage or your kid’s college tuition is decidedly risky.

Learn more about the good doctor for whom time-management seemingly poses no challenges: "Abraham Verghese describes his writing life".

• Photo courtesy: The Washington Post

The art of reviewing a book (and it's an art — make no mistake about it)

At a time when unpaid bloggers online are gaining influence at the expense of professionals, we need to convince the public that good reviewers exist, and are still worth listening to. Otherwise, our readers will continue to look to the internet for news, and the art of the book review will join the typewriter in the trashcan of Time.

These are the heart-felt words of author Joanne Harris, writing in The Independent. To understand better the art of literary criticism, and to know why you should not give away the plot in your review, read her illuminating column in its entirety here: "Criticism is fine, but do you have to spoil the plot?"

"Easy" reading is not always "good" reading, or even "interesting" reading

Here are two paragraphs from Easy Money, by Swedish novelist Jens Lapidus:

He kept a log with daily notes from every workout session at the reception desk. Mrado's goals were clear. To go from 270 to 290 of pure muscle before February. Then change up his strategy. Shred. Burn fat. By summertime: only muscle. Clean, without surface fat. Would look damn good.

He trained at another place, too, the fighting club, Pancrease Gym. Once or twice a week. Guilt got to him. Should go more often. Important to build muscle power. But the power had to be used for something. Mrado's work tool: fear. He went far on size alone. In the end, he went even further on what he learned at Pancrease: to break bones.

I had picked up Easy Money from the Just Books library, lured by the blurb on the cover: "An epic European thriller to rival Stieg Larsson". But after plodding through less than one-third of the book, with its frustratingly fragmentary sentences, I gave up.

That weekend I came across a review of Easy Money in DNA. And I was glad to note that there was at least one other person who shared my feelings about the book. "[There] isn’t much explanation for most of the ... things that ail this 470-page sorry excuse of a thriller," Krishnakumar Padmanabhan wrote in his review. He also made it clear that he, too, wasn't impressed by what he referred to as "clipped, telegraphic prose". Read his review in its entirety here.

Now, for a complete contrast, here's a passage from The Way by Swann's, the first volume of Marcel Proust's magnum opus, "In Search of Lost Time":

The air was saturated with the finest flour of a silence so nourishing, so succulent, that I could move through it only with a sort of greed, especially on those first mornings of Easter week, still cold, when I tasted it more keenly because I had only just arrived in Combray: before I went in to say good morning to my aunt, they made me wait for a moment, in the first room where the sun, still wintry, had come to warm itself before the fire, already lit between the two bricks and coating the whole room with an odour of soot, having the same effect as one of those great country 'front-of-the-ovens', or one of those chateau mantelpieces, beneath which one sits hoping that outdoors there will be an onset of rain, snow, even some catastrophic deluge so as to add, to the comfort of reclusion, the poetry of hibernation; I would take a few steps from the prayer stool to the armchairs of stamped velvet always covered with a crocheted antimacassar; and as the fire baked like a dough the appetizing smells with which the air of the room was all curdled and which had already been kneaded and made to 'rise' by the damp and sunny coolness of the morning, it flaked them, gilded them, puckered them, puffed them, making them into an invisible palpable country pastry, an immense 'turnover' in which, having barely tasted the crisper, more delicate, more highly regarded but also drier aromas of the cupboard, the chest of drawers, the floral wallpaper, I would always come back with an unavowed covetousness to snare myself in the central, sticky, stale, indigestible and fruity smell of the flowered coverlet. 

That's one sentence, 284 words. Not "easy" reading, I agree, but what masterly descriptions in just one sentence! From the air "saturated with the finest flour of a silence so nourishing, so succulent, that I could move through it only with a sort of greed", and the sun, "still wintry", which had "come to warm itself before the fire", to "the poetry of hibernation", and, finally, the narrator's "unavowed covetousness to snare myself in the central, sticky, stale, indigestible and fruity smell of the flowered coverlet". I began reading The Way by Swann's many, many months ago. Now you know why I am nowhere near the end. You don't just read Proust — you read and re-read and re-read. That is the only way to enjoy this phenomenal work of art, to learn how to construct those winding sentences, to lose yourself in a world long-vanished.

I may not read Proust every day. But I am never going to throw him aside as I did Jens Lapidus.

• Want to know more about Proust and In Search of Lost Time? You can read the first chapter of Proust's Way: A Field Guide to 'In Search of Lost Time', by Roger Shattuck, here.

• The Way by Swann's is the reason I'm also reading How Proust Can Change Your Life, by Alain de Botton.

• The famous writer Germaine Greer can't stand Proust. She explains why, in a well-argued feature she wrote for The Guardian, here.

• PS: Speaking of easy reading, check out "Why we should applaud Amish (and ignore what purists say about his writing skills?)". As for easy, interesting, and good reading, check out "The Hunger Games: A 'young adult' series that adults will love".

New Yorker writer Susan Orlean's four pieces of wisdom for writers

• You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.

• You should read as much as possible. That’s the best way to learn how to write.

• You have to appreciate the spiritual component of having an opportunity to do something as wondrous as writing. You should be practical and smart and you should have a good agent and you should work really, really hard. But you should also be filled with awe and gratitude about this amazing way to be in the world.

• Don’t be ashamed to use the thesaurus. I could spend all day reading Roget’s! There’s nothing better when you’re in a hurry and you need the right word right now.

For more, visit this post by my favourite blogger: "Susan Orlean on writing".

• ALSO READ: "The amazing books that made me fall in love with journalism all over again - 1"

How do you make sure you’re writing right?

Here are seven helpful tips provided by Mark Nichol, editor of the Daily Writing Tips blog:

• Look up the definition of an unfamiliar word and be sure you understand the meaning before you use it.
• Search a thesaurus or a synonym finder for the precise meaning, taking care to notice the different connotations of similar words.
• Keep your writing clear and coherent, and avoid pretentious or overly formal language.
• Select the strongest nouns and verbs before you select adjectives and adverbs.
• Seek opportunities to use repetition for rhetorical effect while, at the same time, you watch for careless redundancy.
• Read your draft aloud to help you refine grammar and usage. If something doesn’t sound right to you, it probably doesn’t read right to your audience, either.
• Ask someone else to read your writing and critique it.

Read the post in its entirety here: "7 Tips for Editing to Improve Usage".

Also read Mark Nichol's recent post: "Does Good Writing Matter?"

• ADDITIONAL READING:

"10 Tips about Basic Writing Competency"

"Want To Be Taken Seriously? Become a Better Writer" 

"Want To Be Taken Seriously? Become a Better Writer"

The number of poorly written emails, resumes and blog posts I come across each month is both staggering and saddening. Their grammar is awful. There are dozens of misspellings. Language is much wordier or more complex than necessary. Some things I read literally make no sense at all to me.

DAVE KERPEN

I can imagine my students thinking, "There goes RP Sir, riding his favourite hobby horse again." But those thoughts up there have been expressed by an American CEO, no less, who is also a New York Times best-selling author and keynote speaker.

Dave Kerpen's post on why you should become a better writer if you want to be taken seriously first came to my notice when I checked my LinkedIn account the other day. In the same way his arguments resonated with me, they appear to have struck a chord with many others because this post, as of today, has been tweeted about by more than 3,000 people, shared on LinkedIn by more than 18,000 users, and has attracted more than 8,000 "likes".

Kerpen does not talk down to his readers, as is obvious from a point he makes in his post:

It's not just you who must become a better writer — it’s all of us. I'll be the first to admit, I too have had to learn to become a better writer.

Kerpen then elaborates on the methods he used to become a better writer over the past several years. Here are the bullet points:

• Practice, practice, practice.
• Say it out loud.
• Make it more concise.
• Work on your headlines.
• Read.

You can see for yourself what he has to say about each of the first four points here. Since I consider "good" reading to be essential for good writing, here's Kerpen's last point in full:

Besides practicing writing, the number one way to improve your writing skills is to read great work. I read at least one book per month, at least 20 articles per week, and countless tweets, Facebook posts and emails per day. I know we all have limited time, but truly the best way to become a better writer is to become a better reader [emphasis mine].

I now "follow" Dave Kerpen on LinkedIn. You may want to do the same.

PS: You may also want to read Kerpen's views on how your attitude at work is everything.  Check out this highly relevant post, too: "Best Advice: Always Show Your Friendship First".

• Photo courtesy: Dave Kerpen

ADDITIONAL READING:

1. If you want to be a versatile writer, here's some practical advice

2. "The five traits of a successful writer"

3. Here's how to make time to read 

4. If you don't read, you can't write  

5. In one quote, the essence of writing 

• EXTERNAL READING: Simon Kuper, writing in the Financial Times, argues that texts, blogs, e-mails, and Facebook posts are affecting other kinds of writing — mostly for the good. Read his column here: "How social media improved writing". I am obliged to Apar Dham (Class of 2011) for the alert. Apar wrote in an e-mail to me today: "Some food for thought at the beginning of the week? I remember you always cringing at the language youngsters use for texting, Twitter, Facebook, etc. So I thought that this article might make for some interesting reading." It sure did, Apar!

• EXTERNAL READING: Daily Writing Tips editor Mark Nichol on "Does Good Writing Matter?" 

Too many adjectives, adverbs, and subsidiary clauses are the death of good writing

Alexander McCall Smith has a pet peeve: Overwriting.

The author of more than 60 books, including the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, McCall Smith wrote in a column in The Wall Street Journal that for "some people... the temptation to overindulge is just too great". The result, he says, is the use of too many adjectives, adverbs, and subsidiary clauses. 

He continues:

Such writing then begins to sound contrived. Nobody uses large numbers of adjectives when they think, and I believe that writing which one cannot actually think can very easily look wrong on the page.

The real aim, of course, is conciseness. Concise prose knows what it wants to say, and says it. It does not embellish, except occasionally, and then for dramatic effect.

Now consider this quote by George Orwell, who was also, rightly, obsessed with conciseness in writing:

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.

And here's William Strunk, Jr., of Strunk & White fame, expressing himself firmly on the same subject:

Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.

'Nuff said? 

• Read Alexander McCall Smith's column in its entirety here: "Block That Adjective!"

In one quote, the essence of writing

Writing is linear and sequential; Sentence B must follow Sentence A, and Sentence C must follow Sentence B, and eventually you get to Sentence Z. The hard part of writing isn’t the writing; it’s the thinking. You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: What does the reader need to know next?

~ WILLIAM ZINSSER

• Also read: "William Zinsser: Lord of the Language".

What you need to think about when writing your blog (or when writing. Period.)

Here's some terrific advice from a great American writer, Kurt Vonnegut, who has compiled eight rules for great writing (pay particular attention to No. 7):

1. Find a Subject You Care About
2. Do Not Ramble, Though
3. Keep It Simple
4. Have the Guts to Cut
5. Sound like Yourself
6. Say What You Mean to Say
7. Pity the Readers
8. For Really Detailed Advice...

Read this post by Maria Popova, my favourite blogger, to understand what Vonnegut means: "How to Write with Style: Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Keys to the Power of the Written Word".

ADDITIONAL READING:

• "10 essential tips for becoming an effective blogger"

• Some great advice for first-time bloggers