Not everyone believes what many of us quite likely think about the world: What we see is what there is and that’s that. Let’s move on. We can call that the hard-bitten, common sense view of things, and that view of life is responsible in large measure for all the busyness (which is the derivation …
Author Archives: rultimo
A Fortuitous Kiss
Words and how we compose them are about all we have in written language to produce the thoughts and images that will carry our experience and reflection to others. That is why many teachers and critics are so conservative—or better, conserving—about the proper use of words: language is a surprisingly blunt instrument for conveying the …
Another Short Revision
In an earlier post (Got Five Minutes?), I suggested that a quick revision of a single sentence can be a good exercise in clarifying the first thoughts we put down on paper or screen. The difficulty many of us have in moving from mind-work to word-work—I know what I want to say, but I just …
Got Five Minutes?
Read and Revise One Sentence
In the study of music, an étude is a short composition written to practice technique. Musicians play études to exercise their skill and improve their proficiency. Writers can do something similar by revising one short sentence for a few minutes over and over, knowingly changing structure and design to see the different effects that result. …
Continue reading “Got Five Minutes?
Read and Revise One Sentence”
The Voice Behind the Words
The term written voice refers in writing instruction to the personality a writer presents through the wording, phrasing, and construction of the language we are reading. I say personality deliberately, because it is not so much a question of knowing who the author is in actual, personal detail, but rather of discerning another human being …