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On Writing Well

I need to become a better writer. Part one was to start writing a lot; just writing a lot and paying attention to the craft from an intuitive standpoint. That part started in January 2006 with this blog and has burgeoned into books, golf, and food.

Part two was to learn more about the craft and build writing skills. That started about a year ago with my re-reading of Strunk and White. But after Strunk and White I got arrogant. I was content to just write and write and read and read in hopes that volume would lead to improvement. I think it did for awhile, but now I’ve stopped improving.

I’ve stagnated. I can’t think of new words for great. I struggle with tenses. My creativity seems to be shot. So I’m going to start mixing in some instructional books with my fiction and non-fiction. Plus, I’ve started listening to Grammar Girl. She kicks.

I had high hopes for On Writing Well. The subtitle is The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, which is right up my alley because that’s mostly what I write. It was an enlightening book, but I also struggled with it. The author is a nonfiction writer himself and believes strongly that nonfiction can be literature. The first third of the book contains instruction on form, grammar, and structure. The second third gives specific instruction on the various forms of nonfiction; like sports writing, writing your memoir, and writing for business. The last third is about high level, emotional, and motivational aspects of writing.

I learned a lot, but parts of it were a slow read. The first third (general instruction) and last third (voice and motivation) were very helpful, but the middle third (form-specific instruction) was a drag. I couldn’t stay interested in the instructional pieces for all of the different kinds of nonfiction writing. Zinsser gave a ton of examples but my eyes glazed over when I read them. I think I’ll reread this in a year. Maybe my frame of mind isn’t right at this time.

The most valuable learning moments in this book were the ones about “cleaning up your writing.” You see, I think I do have a cluttered up writing style. Wait, that’s a great example, why didn’t I say “I have a cluttered writing style”? Zinsser hates it when people start sentences with “you see.” He says it’s condescending to the reader. And he begs for us to use simple, plain English without extraneous words that have no value for the reader. He advocates decluttering mercilessly by rereading and rewriting to get to the point of efficient, straightforward, and informative writing. I’m working on it.

The last section about motivation, intention, voice, and quest is worth the wait. Zinsser gives a moving portrait of how he became a writer, why he loves it, how he teaches it, and why you should invest in the act of writing. It was very motivating.

I feel inadequate after reading this book. Most of the examples of poor writing that Zinsser identifies were (and are) perpetrated unknowingly by me regularly. Now that I know what they are, I will try and cut them out, but I don’t have the patience for re-reading and reviewing. I slap stuff on my blogs casually because they are mostly for me and nobody else really reads them. Maybe if I gave more a damn, more people would read them. I’m going to cut back on the volume and spend more quality writing and reviewing time for the next few months.

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Little Black Book of Connections

You may recall that I read the Little Red Book of Selling last year. I liked it a lot. This black book about connecting and networking is just as good. Gitomer is my main man. He’s my Stephen Covey. He’s my Dale Carnegie. He’s my Lou Holtz.

Continue reading “Little Black Book of Connections”
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Persepolis

I, my friends, am branching out. This book is the autobiographical story of a young woman growing up in Iran in the late 70’s/early 80’s. Young Marjane begins her story during the Islamic Revolution in 1979 when she was ten years old and takes us through the next five years of her life. The cool part is that this book is written in the form of a black and white comic book. Yeah, that’s right, a black and white comic book. Aren’t I offbeat and eclectic?

So, in 1979, the Shah of Iran gets run out of the country and given asylum by Anwar Sadat, the president of Egypt. Political prisoners were freed but the Cultural Revolution starts shortly thereafter and results in more deaths and imprisonment. During the Cultural Revolution all Iranian universities were shut down for two years to purge the system of “westernism” and smooth the way for the conversion to an Islamic state. Ayatollah Khomeini became the supreme leader of the country. Relations with the US deteriorated rapidly (the hostage crisis) and the war with Iraq began.

These events are played out in the view of a worldly pre-teen girl. I’m sure my recounting of the history has huge gaps because the exact retelling of what went on is not the point of the book. I think the point is that people inside Iran basically didn’t know what hit them. As these huge changes were happening, they had no idea if they were going to be better off or not. People were happy then they were sad. Long lost friends were back one day and gone abruptly shortly thereafter. It appeared a repressive regime was gone, but then the universities were shut down and strict rules on appearance and conduct began to be enforced by a crueler regime.

I could not imagine the turmoil. During that time I was in high school and really didn’t have a clue as to what was going on. I collected baseball cards, studied hard, played golf, and listened to Iron Maiden. Really, what else was there to do? I vaguely remember the hostage crisis and the 1980 US presidential election, but there wasn’t a lot of lively debate in my familial or social circle. However, I could recite the starting lineup of every major league baseball team…I’m talking every position of every team, except maybe the fourth and fifth pitchers in the rotation.

So since any sort of analysis of this Middle Eastern crisis passed me by during my formative years, I don’t have a good understanding of the politics and history of the Middle East, even though it’s in the news all of the time. I’ve always been curious about it but just not enough to really dig into it. I remember attempting to read Thomas Friedman’s From Beirut to Jerusalem back in the early 1990’s, but I just couldn’t get through it. That it takes a comic book to really pique my interest in the subject is probably a sad commentary on my life. But the format does not detract from the keen insight that Marjane Satrapi provides.

Her family was rebellious. Her parents spoke out against the Shah vigorously. When the Shah fled and the new Khomeini regime came into power, they protested again. However, they stopped in short order because the punishment was much worse under the new regime. They still protested in private by drinking, dancing, and playing cards. But as the war with Iraq dragged on, the regime cracked down harder and harder on people who showed resistance. Rebellion came in different, more private ways.

Young Marjane rebelled by listening to Iron Maiden, which, as you know, is my favorite rock group of all time. So at the same time but half a world away, I was listening to the same music that this young Iranian woman was listening to. Their intelligent lyrics did not belie their thug-like appearance and this is proof that Iron Maiden spoke for more than just a group of middle class white kids in northwest Ohio.

Near the end of the book an Iraqi scud hits Marjane’s street in Tehran and her neighbor is killed. She knows this because she recognizes her neighbor’s arm in the rubble by the bracelet that she always wore. Her life changed after this and she becomes very rebellious. One day she smacks the principal and gets expelled from school. At her new school, Marjane argues with the religion teacher about martyrdom and executions. At this point, her parents come to the realization that this country is not good for their daughter. With her rebellious attitude they figure she will not make it out of her teen years. At age 14, they send Marjane to Austria to live with a friend and attend school. Marjane never expects to see her parents again and the book ends.

It’s a moving book and well worth the time. You can get through this 153 page comic book in less than two hours. I’m glad I spent the time. She has a sequel that starts where this book leaves off and I will read that soon.

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Deathwatch

I’m jamming through some serious fiction on this long weekend, so I was forced to reload in a book store in downtown Ventura, CA. It was a huge used book store called Bank of Books. Awesome. As I was wandering through the store I saw a book that brought back a flood of memories from my early reading days. It was this one, Deathwatch, by Robb White.

I read it so long ago that I didn’t have an ounce of recollection for even the major details. I think it might have been 5th or 6th grade when I read it. My memory was clear about one thing though; I loved it back then.

Today, even after the second reading, it did not disappoint. It’s a straightforward action thriller about a college-aged kid who’s trying to make enough money to pay for his next year in college. He does so by being a week-long, hired guide for a high-powered businessman who wants to kill a bighorn for his game room.

Well, the businessman, Madec, accidentally shoots an old prospector who he mistakes for a bighorn and tries to cover it up. Ben, the kid, won’t have anything to do with that so a disagreement ensues. So what does Madec do? He manufactures some evidence against Ben, strips him down, and sends him off into the dessert to die.

The rest is just vintage, somewhat brainless, action. Which goes down very easily for me next to the pool, but I understand that some aren’t ready for something this straightforward so I put the with reservations in. In a relative sense, I didn’t like this book today as much as I did back then. Back then, it was so different and so much more intense than what I was reading at the time. I was just a kid in awe and went on to read a few of his other books (Up Periscope was one that I definitely remember).

But, this book certainly stands the test of time. I wasn’t bored this time around at all. I think this book works well for adults or kids. All in all, a very cool experience for me personally.

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Where Angels Fear to Tread

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been consuming a lot of popular fiction so far this year. For balance, I grabbed some literature before heading out on vacation. This E.M. Forster fellow spins a good yarn and it made for some great vacation reading.

Forster wrote Howard’s End, which I didn’t read, but I saw the movie. I liked it, but I can’t remember it that well. I know for sure that Howard’s End (the movie) was not as shocking as this book. There were two shocking twists and it was more of a page-turner than I expected from so-called lit.

WARNING: PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW

This story appears to be about a headstrong and foolish young mother, Lillia, who’s husband has died. Her in-laws tolerate her despite their view that she is not worthy of their social standing in early-1900s London society. The in-laws send her off to a vacation in Italy and she meets a local common man (Gino) and weds shortly thereafter. The in-laws try and stop the marriage from happening, but it’s too late. Well, it turns out that the marriage is a bust and Lillia and Gino really don’t love each other, but they decide to have a kid (a son) anyhow.

Then Lillia dies. That’s right, at the end of chapter two or three, she dies from complications at childbirth. Shocking, at least to me. What’s this book about, I asked myself?

Well, it gets more warped from there. Her in-laws try and hide the existence of this young son from the world (and from Lillia’s daughter) but the world finds out. This causes some serious complications. I’m talking serious complications. In fact, the whole cadre (Lillia’s brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and friend) go to Italy to try and convince Gino to allow them to take the child back to England so they can raise him there.

This goes very badly because Gino will not give up the child, so the idiot sister-in-law kidnaps the child. To make matters worse, as they are making their getaway with the kidnapped child, their carriage overturns and the child dies.

Damn, this is heavy stuff. It’s like watching a Merchant Ivory movie. You may wonder why I would read such heavy stuff on vacation. Hmmm, for some reason, I embrace the carnage. Not sure why.

I’m in an especially reflective mode lately. A passage in the about the author section really struck me:

His six novels explore subtle political questions, as what seems at first to be merely stories of conflicts among friends, lovers, and families come to illuminate underlying tensions between the wealthy and the poor, individuals and nations.

Things that we still need illuminated today. I sit here during the aftermath of the Virginia Tech tragedy wondering about the parallels. How much of Cho Seung-Hui’s deranged lunacy was made even worse by today’s class struggle between rich and poor. Back in 1900’s England, young people rebelled, sure. But they did it by running off and marrying someone outside of their social class. Now you buy a gun and kill people outside of your social class. It’s a messed up world.

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N is for Noose

I’m 7 books away from being caught up to Sue Grafton’s alphabet series. I wonder if she’s just going to stop at Z. Anyway, I grabbed this one on the way out the door for a vacation in Santa Barbara wine country, which just so happens to be the heart of Sue Grafton country.

Kinda cool huh? I’m going to Santa Barbara, CA for a long weekend, so how appropriate is it to start reading a book by an author that lives in Santa Barbara and uses the city as the backdrop for her bestselling crime series? Well, I think it’s pretty damn appropriate. Plus, it’s a mangled paperback that I got on eBay so I’ll just leave it for another reader when I’m done and lighten my load for the trip back. I rule.

Not much to say. And what could I say that could possibly be interesting to a non-reader of the series or thought provoking 10 or 20 years down the road when I look back at this blog to figure out what was going on in my life in 2007? Well, I’m going to stray from my normal take on fiction and disclose some plot killers.

WARNING: PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW

This book separates itself from the others for a couple of reasons. First, there are a few very intense assaults against the main character, Kinsey Milhone; more so than in the previous books. Second, I pretty much figured it out about mid way through the book; something I haven’t done yet in the series.

About the assaults; twice Kinsey is confronted by a mysterious man in a black ski mask. Even though neither occasion was an attempt on her life, they were still darker and more ominous than even the murderous attempts on her life in the past. Grafton’s descriptions of the events were right out of thrillerdom and made for good reading. And I might add, the perp in both cases gets his due when Kinsey goes on a PCP-induced rampage and kicks his ass, then drops the f-bomb. Out-of-character, but great stuff.

About me figuring it out, well, I didn’t necessarily have it wired in, but I can remember the exact moment where Grafton foreshadowed the perpetrator. During the second assault mentioned above, Kinsey said the the perpetrator “smelled of sweat.” I said to myself, “it’s got to be Brant because he goes to the gym all of the time.” Well, it was Brant, I was correct. Although I backed-off on my assessment so maybe I don’t deserve credit for figuring it out.

Was this a coincidence or did I really root out the killer? Not sure, but it didn’t impinge on my enjoyment of the book because my conviction was not that strong. I was left in doubt just about until the end.

I’m going to take a few months off from Grafton.

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The Blind Side

If you read one football book this year, make it this one! It’s two stories in one. One, call it the main story, is a human interest story about a wealthy, white Memphis family that takes a poor, black student into their home and makes him part of their family. The other, call it the back story, is a technical, information-rich sports story about the profound changes that occurred in football over the course of 20 years, beginning in the early 1980s. Both stories are worthy of your attention and I could not put it down.

The first chapter starts with that fateful Monday night back in 1985 when Lawrence Taylor (Giants) ended the football career of Joe Theisman (Redskins). It’s a riveting account of that moment, but more so a treatise on the effect that LT had on the NFL. LT echoed in the era of the huge, speedy, violent, versatile linebacker/defensive end that wreaks havoc on the offensive backfield. The NFL has not looked back since.

Along with the advent of the super-linebacker, came the offensive reaction to stop these monsters. Since most quarterbacks are right-handed, his blind side, or left side, is most vulnerable because he can’t see much of that side of the field during the standard drop-back. This aspect of the game eventually turned any offensive tackles who were especially skilled in blind side protection into some of the highest paid men in the sport.

Thus far, the attribution for this blind side protection requirement has been laid at LT’s doorstep. But as you find out, it’s more attributable to a confluence of the rise of the passing game (brought about by Bill Walsh) and LT. This confluence came to a head in January 1981, when Bill Walsh’s highly technical offense (Montana, 49ers) came face-to-face with the relentless passion of LT’s pass rush (Bill Parcells, Giants) in a playoff game. Walsh stopped the fiery LT with a makeshift blocking scheme that had left guard John Ayers pulling back from the line of scrimmage to pick up LT. Walsh won, but knew that this scheme would not last forever and what was really needed was a left tackle that could handle the likes of LT without scheming or assistance.

Michael Oher had the physical attributes to be just such a left tackle. He was a huge, strong, fast, mobile wall of humanity; but he was mired in the Memphis public school system, which meant basically that he didn’t go to school . One day, in like 2002, Michael’s guardian (named Big Tony, note that I did not say legal guardian either) decided to find a better place for his son and just brought Michael along. He drove the two kids across Memphis to a primarily white, evangelical Christian school called Briarcrest. The two kids could not have been further from the prototypical Briarcrest student if they had tried, but Big Tony got them both enrolled.

It just so happens that Briarcrest has a lot of wealthy, interested athletic boosters. Sean Touhy is one of those. He is a Memphis businessman and former record setting point guard for Ole’ Miss. His daughter went to Briarcrest and he is sort of an athletic counselor and coach’s assistant for the school. Sean is married to a headstrong former Ole’ Miss cheerleader, also has a son named Sean Junior, owns a bunch of Taco Bells, and is the Memphis Grizzlies color analyst. Sean just seems to hang around the Briarcrest athletic facilities a lot, he eventually befriends Michael, and introduces the rest of his family to the shy young man.

Everything unfolds from there and you are let into this world of football, high school politics, NCAA rules, and race relations in Memphis. It’s a strange story. It’s also very current. Michael Oher is still at Ole’ Miss if I’m not mistaken. This book really sucked me in. I loved it.

If you like football, you will like this book. In fact, if you have a pulse, you’ll like this book. Lewis brings a few things to the table, in my view, that make him a sports author worth reading. First, he brings a quantitative, analytical approach to explaining the whys and wherefores of his thesis (I like quantitative and analytical). Second, he brings a genuine care and concern for honoring sports and their import in American life (I honor sports). Finally, he is a great storyteller. He delivers the back story with a tone of resolute detachment that has a chilling effect at times (case in point, chapter one on LT/Theisman) and he retells the main story with a lot of passion for the characters.

Great stuff, grab it and read it.

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Citizen Vince

This is a recommendation from the Nick Hornby book I read last month. Hornby is actually quoted on the back jacket and says about it:

This terrific book…is smart, funny, dark, and moving-and Jess Walter is clearly a writer to watch.

As you know, I’m a big fan of crime fiction. I’m always looking for something that is “smart” and “dark,” so I was powerless and bought it even though I forgot my 30% off coupon from Borders Rewards. Oh well, I agree with Hornby for the most part, so it was a good purchase.

It’s the story of Vince, a small-time crook who testified against some very bad people in New York City, and now spends his time making donuts and partaking in credit card fraud in Seattle while in the witness protection program. Everything is clipping along fine, until a hired killer from the old neighborhood finds him.

Vince is a cool guy. At first it seems like it’s a classic “I’m gonna get out of the game as soon as I make enough money” crime novel. But it’s a lot deeper than that. There’s this sensitive relationship between Vince and his hooker friend who wants to be a real estate agent. There’s Vince buying and borrowing books so he can have one in-hand every morning when the beautiful woman comes into the donut shop (he starts the books, but never finishes them). There’s the beautiful woman’s local politician friend that Vince peppers with questions about his platform. And there’s Vince’s ongoing internal and external debate about whether to vote for Reagan or Carter (yes, the book takes place in 1980). All provide comic relief, character depth, and thoughtful diversions from your concern about this nice criminal with destructive tendencies.

There are even a few cool back stories. One is about the Seattle cop tracking Vince to New York. It is really moving. Another is about the local politician that Vince befriends for a night. Each story takes some very intense turns. You are on the edge of your seat at times, laughing at times, and learning at times.

Great stuff, thanks Hornby for doing me up with a good rec.

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Truman

Truman’s presidency occurred during times of immense global unrest and he was forced to make a few of the most pivotal decisions in US history. These decisions certainly affected the standing and prosperity of the US during his lifetime, but they also had reverberations that would affect the political and economic make-up of Asia and Europe for decades to come.

It’s been a while since I’ve listened to a book. But listening to this one really has me juiced for some more because it was really good. McCullough takes you through the expanse of Truman’s life, beginning with his humble beginnings on the Missouri countryside and detailing the significant events of his life through his death in 1972. Here is a quick timeline:

  • 1884-Born, Lamar, Missouri
  • 1914-Member of artillery brigade, World War I, mostly France
  • 1934-Elected to Senate (D, Missouri)
  • 1944-FDR re-elected to presidency with Truman as his VP
  • 1945-Truman becomes president upon FDR’s death (April)
  • 1945-Authorized use of the atomic bomb in Japan (August)
  • 1946-Threatened to take presidential control of the railroads and draft railway workers if they did not end their strike, effectively settling the strike but alienating labor
  • 1947-Develops Truman Doctrine (policy of containment) and appoints George Marshall as his secretary of state (who subsequently developed the Marshall Plan to assist in rebuilding Europe)
  • 1950-In second term as president, urged U.N. to intervene in Korea and authorized deployment of US troops to Korea under General MacArthur
  • 1951-Ceased aggression in Korea and fired MacArthur from his command in Korea and Japan
  • 1952-Lost New Hampshire primary and cancels re-election campaign
  • 1972-Dies the day after Christmas

These were the highlights in the abridged version I listened to. There was evidently not enough time to talk about the Berlin Airlift, Israel, civil rights, the Fair Deal, the Red Scare, or Vietnam.

I love McCullough’s delivery on the audio book version. He reads it like a grandfather telling a story. He doesn’t use much voice inflection but you can tell he cares deeply about the topic. It’s comforting to listen to his silvery voice and smooth delivery.

There were some chilling moments in Truman’s presidency. Shortly after dropping the bomb on Hiroshima, he said these words in his address to the nation.

…we are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake, we shall completely destroy Japan’s power to make war. If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a reign of ruin from the air the like of which has never been seen on this earth.

That’s heavy stuff. Often McCullough would mix in real audio, but not for the above. I’m sure it’s on tape, I wonder if someone would not let him use it or if he thought it would be too horrifying to hear it from Truman himself. The book goes into a fairly lengthy discussion on the aftermath. There is some real audio after the second bomb on Nagasaki from Truman where he tells Japanese civilians to leave the cities because he was going to destroy everything in them. Sobering stuff.

Truman never went to college, but he was worldly, well read, and very grounded. I think this is why he was careful in selecting his advisers and why he deflected a lot of the credit for victories to others but took responsibility for failures. Perhaps his most famous appointment was making George Marshall the Secretary of State in 1947. Marshall engineered the aptly named Marshall Plan to assist in the post-war rebuilding of Europe and to help stop communist aggression. It has it’s detractors, but for the most part it is viewed by historians as an unmitigated success.

Truman’s most famous public brawl was with General MacArthur. MacArthur wanted to continue north of the 38th parallel in Korea because he did not feel that the Russians or Chinese would intervene on the North’s behalf. MacArthur said this in public, which was particularly discouraging to the Truman administration. Truman disagreed, and when Truman relieved him of duty there was a public outcry of massive proportions. MacArthur went on an unprecedented “victory” tour of the US when he got back from Korea and made speeches espousing his ideas for the war and where he thought Truman got it wrong. Truman basically ignored this and eventually the country came around to ignoring MacArthur also. Finally, MacArthur made his “old soldiers just fade away” speech and the public battle between the two giants of US history faded away also.

Truman ended up living out a his life after the presidency in a state of unending wonderment and joy. You may not agree with every decision that he made, but I would say he honored the office of the Presidency.

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Made to Stick

Early on, the authors state the purpose of this book:

We wrote this book to help you make your ideas stick. By “stick,” we mean that your ideas are understood and remembered, and have a lasting impact – they change your audiences opinions or behavior.

This is important for me. The description on the jacket of “why some ideas survive and other die” grabbed me. I need and want to get better at getting my “ideas to stick.” It seems like I should have always had this desire, but I didn’t.

Now, I need to get better at it because I have my own business and I need to sell my ideas to potential clients. Now, I want to get better at it because I have ideas about books, golf, and food that I think could make all of these things more enjoyable to people. These are recent realizations. But that doesn’t explain my complete lack of care about improving my ability to get my ideas across to humanity up until this point in my life.

I’m not going to dwell on it. Now I care, let’s press on.

Chip and Dan Heath have crafted an informative and very readable business book on this subject. So informative and readable, that I will re-read it, tab and bookmark it, then add it to the “reference” section of my book shelf to be referred to regularly. Outside of the fact that material is timely and important to me, I liked it for a variety of structural reasons.

  • It’s packed with examples, stories, and illustrative anecdotes. I mean packed. I can’t recall another business book that I’ve read recently that is so loaded up with real-world examples. They are incorporated into the material and set off in stickiness “clinics.” These stories are the backbone of this book and for me, it’s an effective way to convey the material.
  • They have a simple mnemonic that describes their theory on stickiness (SUCCESs), and they confirm, reconfirm, and expand on it throughout the book. They set up the structure in chapter one for applying their theories then analyze each illustration throughout the book relative to this structure. Also, highly effective for me
  • Tonally, this book reads like people talk. Even though the Heaths appear to be academics, there isn’t any academic-speak in this book. In fact, it’s highly approachable. They tell stories as if in wonderment at how cool the stories are. The make humorous comments and put offbeat thoughts in parentheses within a sentence. It’s an easy read.

This simple mnemonic that I spoke of is SUCCESs.

  • Simple
  • Unexpected
  • Concrete
  • Credible
  • Emotional
  • Stories

Sticky ideas have at least a few of these traits. They describe each in detail in its own, action-packed chapter.

They also refer throughout the book to what they call the Curse of Knowledge.

Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has “cursed” us. And it becomes difficult to share our knowledge with others, because we can’t readily re-create our listeners’ state of mind.

They use this in their descriptive framework throughout and it clarifies certain things for me. Like why I zone out when someone is explaining a specialized or technical topic to me. Or why my ideas about golf click immediately with others that love golf but are met with blank stares by those unfamiliar with the game.

It’s straightforward, it’s informative, and it’s useful to me today.