How to Write
The New York Times' great language guru William Safire called this "The most helpful book the beginning writer can buy....Superb!" And the Washington Post said that "This little book is one of the more helpful guides for the beginning writer. It emphasizes good organization in getting started on a first draft, and gives clear, intelligent counsel on how to do this...Will surely help the young, the confused, and the struggling."
No wonder this clear and concise handbook has become among the most widely used writing guides of all time.
Excerpts from How to Write:
Let's begin by setting aside a myth: that the way to write is to sit for hours on end at a desk or kitchen table, staring at a blank computer screen and waiting patiently — sometimes desperately — for inspiration to strike...
Nonsense. In real life if never happens this way....It only looks this way because the key decisions a writer needs to make, and the steps that he or she then must take to turn these decisions into words, sentences, paragraphs, pages, and so forth, are invisible to people who haven't been shown what these decisions are and how to take the various steps that follow...
Like the writing process itself, this book is divided into three parts:
• Organizing for the Job
• Turning Out a Draft
• Polishing the Product
More praise for How to Write:
NEA Today:
"Shows would-be writers — from high-school age up — how any writing task is a matter of organizing for the job, turning out a first draft, and polishing the product."
Voice of Youth Advocates:
"It is hard to imagine a more practical how-to book on the subject of writing than the one turned out by this husband-and-wife team.....a godsend to the novice, as well as a welcome aid to the more seasoned writer occasionally floundering about for just the right technique to develop an idea."
