Several Short Sentences About Writing

Here, in short, is what I want to tell you.
Know what each sentence says,
What it doesn't say,
And what it implies.
Of these, the hardest is knowing what each sentence actually says.

  1. ​​Sonorisms V​​
  2. ​​Both models are completely useless​​
  3. ​​The shape of the sentence​​
  4. ​​The Anxiety of Sequence​​
  5. ​​You can get anywhere from anywhere​​
  1. ​​Wittgenstein's Mistress​​
  2. ​​Write Simply​​
  3. ​​The most important thing you do​​

The connection to Wittgenstein's Mistress is mostly stylistic. Both have similar line-by-line constructions. One beautiful sentence after another.

  1. Sonorisms V

    Leave space between them for the things that words can't really say.
    To suggest more than the words seem to allow.
    Perhaps it renames the world.
    The Anxiety of Sequence.
    It was all change until the very last second.
    The debris of someone else's thinking.
    You'll never run out of noticings.
    Names that announce the whatness of the world.
    What were you trying to protect?
    You were protecting the memory.
    The tyranny of what exists.
    Do any of them sound first?
    It sets an echo in motion.
    Try writing for the reader in yourself.
    So call it "perfection enough".
    Toward the name of the world—yours to discover.

  2. Both models are completely useless

    In your head, you'll probably find two models for writing.
    One is the familiar model taught in high school and college—a matter of outlines and drafts and transitions and topic sentences and argument.

    The other model is its antithesis—the way poets and novelists are often thought to write.
    Words used to describe this second model include "genius", "inspiration", "flow", and "natural", sometimes even "organic".

    Both models are useless.
    I should qualify that sentence.
    Both models are completely useless.

  3. The shape of the sentence

    You've been taught to overlook the character of the prose in front of you in order to get at its meaning.
    You overlook the shape of the sentence itself for the meaning it contains,
    Which means that while you were reading,
    All those millions of words passed by
    Without teaching you how to make sentences.

  4. The Anxiety of Sequence

    Much of what's taught under the name of expository writing could be called "The Anxiety of Sequence."
    Its premise is this:
    To get where you're going, you have to begin in just the right place
    And take the proper path,
    Which depends on knowing where you plan to conclude.

    1. ​​The Age of the Essay​​
  5. Significant everywhere

    Writing isn't a conveyor belt bearing the reader to "the point" at the end of the piece, where the meaning will be revealed.
    Good writing is significant everywhere,
    Delightful everywhere.

  6. A renaming of the already named

    A true metaphor is a swift and violent twisting of language,
    A renaming of the already named.
    It's meant to expire in a sudden flash of light
    And to reveal—in that burst of illumination—
    A correspondence that must be literally accurate.

  7. This small internal quaver

    Pay attention now:
    No matter how much you know or learn about syntax, grammar, or rhetoric,
    This small internal quaver, this inner disturbance,
    Is the most useful evidence you'll ever get.
    Someday, you'll be able to articulate what causes it.
    But for now, what's important is to notice it.
    Noticing is always the goal.

    ...the faint vertigo caused by an ambiguity you can't quite detect.

    What matter is what it points to.
    Find out what's causing it and fix it
    Even if you're not sure how.

    1. ​​Notes on the Synthesis of Form​​
  8. Talking and writing

    Talking is natural.
    Writing is not.

    It may seem strange that the manual dexterity needed to hold a pencil—or use a keyboard—comes later than the lingual and mental dexterity needed to speak.
    But it does.

  9. What were you trying to protect?

    As the piece evolves, you try to protect those original, effusive sentences.
    Only to realize, at last, that what you're writing won't come together until they've been removed or revised.

    What were you trying to protect?
    The memory of the excitement you felt when those words "came to you."
    (Where did they "come" from?)
    You were protecting the memory
    of the excitement of really concentrating,
    of paying close attention to your thoughts and, perhaps, your sentences,
    the excitement of feeling the galvanic link between language and thought.

  10. The discoveries you make in the making

    Style is an expression of the interest you take in the making of every sentence.
    It emerges, almost without intent, from your engagement with each sentence.
    It's the discoveries you make in the making of the prose itself.

    Where ambiguity rules, there is no "style"—or anything else worth having.

    Pursue clarity instead.
    In the pursuit of clarity, style reveals itself.

    1. ​​The idea grows as they work​​
    2. ​​Four principles​​
    3. ​​Expressing ideas helps to form them​​
  11. The virtue of already existing

    It can be overwhelming—the inertia of the paragraphs and pages you've already composed, the sentences you've already written,
    No matter how rough they are.

    Whether you love what you've written or not,
    Those sentences have the virtue of already existing,
    Which makes them better than sentences that don't exist.
    Or so it seems.

  12. Squander your material

    Squander your material.
    Don't ration it, saving the best for last.
    You don't know what the best is.
    Or the last.

  13. Do any of them sound first?

    Just try out some sentences.
    Lots of them.
    See how they sound.
    Do any of them sound first?

    You're holding an audition.
    Many sentences will try out.
    One gets the part.

  14. We have testimony

    Proof is for mathematicians.
    Logic is for philosophers.
    We have testimony.

  15. The work selects its audience

    Imagine a cellist playing one of Bach's solo suites.
    Does he consider his audience?
    (Did Bach, for that matter?)
    Does he play the suit differently to audiences
    Of different incomes and educations and social backgrounds?
    No. The work selects its audience.