Tuesday, November 23, 2010

words to the wise

Angst is the greatest catalyst for writer productivity.  This technically "short" week has been dragging on, not because I'm really looking forward to turkey, but more because I'm really looking forward to writing.  My life feels so up in the air lately that I'm really hoping that writing about someone else's, albeit fabricated, problems will be therapeutic.

I stumbled across this today, and it made me smile (which was pretty tough to do today), so I thought I would share it with y'all:

Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a
great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

~William Safire, "Great Rules of Writing"

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