I blogged last week about Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, a book of advice for would-be writers. I finished reading it yesterday. One chapter that resonated with me, called “Index Cards,” describes how Lamott jots down any observations or insights that might later inform her writing. “Whenever I am leaving the house without my purse…”
Author: Paul Knight
Gender-Neutral Pronouns
In principle I endorse the use of “they” as a singular pronoun when the gender of the person to whom it refers is unknown or irrelevant: “Ask each of the students what they want for lunch,” for example. Language experts point out that serious writers have been using “they” this way since the 1300s…
The Hardest Job in the World
A couple of weeks ago I blogged about how John Dickerson described Dwight D. Eisenhower as a “life hacker” in an early chapter of his new book, The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency. Yesterday I finished the book, and I’d recommend it to anyone who is interested in the nature of the U.S. presidency or the overall state of American governance. As the title suggests, Dickerson asserts that the American presidency has become really hard — so hard, in fact, that no one person can do it well…
Cutting Back on the News
I hear from more and more people that they’ve cut down on their news consumption because they just can’t take the stress. For some it was Donald Trump’s presidency that made the news too painful to follow closely. For others the tipping point was the coronavirus pandemic. The two phenomena together can make reading or watching the news a veritable exercise in masochism…
What We Don’t Know We Don’t Know
I was just perusing Kevin Kelly’s 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice and wondering, not for the first time, what I would include if I were to make a list like that. What have I learned over my 67 years that I might pass on to a younger person in hopes of helping them avoid having to learn the same lessons the hard way?…
Sophisticated Internet Searching
Many people — especially students, I suspect — have noted that the instantaneous availability of information on the internet makes committing things to memory less useful than it used to be. Edward Tenner, in his book The Efficiency Paradox, suggests that while this may be true, it also means that being able to conduct effective online searches is increasingly important. . . There’s one tip that I’ve repeatedly found helpful. . .
Hamilton
When the movie The Shawshank Redemption came out, Jennifer and I heard several people say it was worth seeing. But we just weren’t interested. But the recommendations kept coming, and we finally bit the bullet and rented it years after it came out. We loved it. To this day, “Shawshank Redemption” has been our shorthand for anything we avoid because we’re sure we won’t like it, only to be blown away when we finally give it a chance. Which brings us to Hamilton . . .
I Love These Glasses
OK, this is a departure for me — it’s a product endorsement. It’s not a paid endorsement, and I have no aspirations to be an internet “influencer,” but I do like to tell people about a cool product when I find one. (I may have been responsible for more Palm Pilot sales in the late ’90s than some paid salespeople.) . . .
Can Writing Be Taught?
After I mentioned in my blog yesterday that a friend had suggested that I consider taking a writing course, my friend and brother-in-law Tom wrote me a long email in which he related his experience with a writing course and mused about whether writing is something than can actually be taught. I spent a long time composing my reply and then realized that much of what I’d written might be worth posting here, so I’m cannibalizing my email to Tom for today’s post . . .
Bird by Bird
When a friend of mine learned that I was writing a blog, she read some of my posts and then told me that she admired my commitment to improve my writing and that I was well on my way, but that I might want to consider taking a writing course. Oof, right? But even though I can be a little thin-skinned, I found that her suggestion didn’t sting . . .