Dear Reader,
Today's guest author, Gregory Wallace is a lawyer and writer in New York City. He is the author of Papa's Game, about the theft of the French Connection heroin, which received a nonfiction nomination for an Edgar Allan Poe Award; America's Soul in the Balance, The Woman Who Fought an Empire, and the historical novel Two Men Before the Storm. He has written op eds for The New York Times, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal, has appeared as a commentator on CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, and The Today Show.
Gregory’s brand new title is, Into Siberia: George Kennan's Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia:
Into Siberia is the untold story of how an American investigative journalist exposed the barbaric Siberian exile system that sent a million Russians into a vast prison without a roof. Kennan traveled eight thousand miles, mostly in horse-drawn carriages, sleighs or on horseback, through suffocating summer sandstorms and fierce winter blizzards. His interviews with convicts and political exiles revealed that Russia ran on the fuel of inflicted pain and fear.
Reach out to Gregory via https://www.gregorywallance.com/contact
Welcome to the book club Gregory Wallace...
The Hard Work of Writing Craftsmanship
The notion "write drunk, edit sober" is often attributed to Ernest Hemingway because it sounds like something the hard drinking author could have said (he rejected the credit, saying he never drank while writing).
Here are three lodestars for writing craftsmanship that, instead of a hangover, offer substantial rewards to a writer.
Mark Twain once wrote to a friend that, "the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. 'Tis the difference between the lightning bug and lightning."
"The Elements of Style," by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, succinctly advises writers to be succinct: "Vigorous writing is concise." In other words, less is more.
Finally, "organize, organize, organize." I don't know where I picked this up, but the way the parts fit together is as important as the parts themselves.
All three lodestars require endless trial and error. But it's worth the effort, for example, when the right word finally snaps into place. Once, after a thorough but unsuccessful search for the "right" word, I restructured the sentence to eliminate the "almost" right word rather than accept it.
Concise writing can require ruthlessness. Writers tend to fall in love with their first draft, which makes it difficult to cut. Sentences, paragraphs, and even chapters sometimes simply need to go. If the same information can be conveyed in two sentences instead of three, then why do you need the extra sentence? I use a rule, with few exceptions, that any sentence longer than five manuscript lines is too long, which forces me to be concise.
To reread a draft with a fresh eye, I build in "breaks" in a writing project where I stop writing for a while and then review the draft. Or, if I lack time, I change the font and type-size, or convert a draft in word to pdf format, and then re-read. Both techniques allow for a fresh read that makes it easier to spot the "almost" right words or the need for re-organization.
Hard work, for sure, but that's the craftsmanship of writing.
-- Gregory J. Wallace
https://www.gregorywallance.com/contact
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
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