“Draft” from The New York Times, Part 2: Diagramming, A History

Every now and then, I hear people boasting about how skilled they were in diagramming sentences back in elementary school or lamenting what they consider to be the lost art of diagramming. Ah, I remember diagramming well, the activity by which we care not about the meaning of words but their grammatical function as we place each one in its proper place along a demarcated line with potentially limitless sub-lines. 

While I did pretty well at this task myself, I am not about to praise or bury it, but simply to draw attention to an excellent New York Times article, "A Picture of Language," by Kitty Burns Florey in the series Draft. In this brief essay, Florey nicely summarizes the history of diagramming in public education. She covers this topic in depth in her book Sister  Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Curious History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences.

I bring this article to your attention because diagramming remains a controversial topic for those who argue whether we should teach language and writing structurally or stylistically.

"Draft" from The New York Times, Part 1: The Rhythm of Writing

The New York Times runs an occasional series on writing, Draft, about the art and craft of writing. Over the next few posts, I want to draw attention to some of these articles because I often refer to them in my writing courses or recommend them as useful reading to aspiring writers.

One of these articles, "Writing to the Beat" by Perry Garfinkel, discusses connections between other art forms, in Garkinkel's case, drumming, and writing. The benefits of doing both activities includes not only the chance to better balance mental and physical activities but to gain insight into the rhythm of writing, the sound of the language moving readers along whichever path the writer aim to direct them. Living in both art forms also helps the artist appreciate one of them far more when engaged in the other. It's a brief piece of imaginative writing.

Writers Speak About Writing, Part 4: Charles Yu

"In order to write, don't write." I'm not sure if any writer can get a better tip for overcoming self-consciousness when composing. Whether the writer is an accountant, business analyst, engineer, journalist, novelist, poet, preacher, salesperson, scientist, or technician, author Charles Yu offers a sound piece of practical advice with humor and insight in this minute-plus clip.

My writing-coaching experience tells me that self-consciousness indeed is a source of writer's block, labored drafting, stress, and procrastination, all time killers for writers on deadlines. So getting into that zone of not writing in order to produce words on the screen or on paper is surely a sensible goal. How to get into that zone ... well, that's another story. 

Writers Speak About Writing, Part 3: Lee Child

British novelist Lee Child came to writing later in life, after age 40, when he lost his corporate job. In this interview, he notes that starting late as a writer is as it should be. He says, "This is a great career because not only can you but you should start late." He believes that the experience emerging from living and reading become assets to writers, who are essentially observers of the human condition.

Of course countless great writers reached great success in their youth. Nevertheless, Child is encouraging to late bloomers during this three-minute chat.

Writers Speak About Writing, Part 2: Rick Riordan

I cannot stress enough in my teaching these three simple tips from author Rick Riordan for aspiring writers: read a lot, write a lot, and don't give up.

Of course, many do give up because of some fanciful notion they have about what it means to be a successful writer. For most writers, success means not wealth or fame but the ability to work at the craft in spite of the obstacles that life and the profession throws their way. Listen carefully to this two-minute talk, and go back to work.

Writers Speak About Writing, Part 1: Charlie Rose Show

Writing is work. Hard work. Work that might lead you down a dead end. But we do it because at its best, it reveals something about us as we deal with others and ourselves in this mystery called life.

Renowned interviewer Charlie Rose has featured numerous writers on his PBS program, and this 14-minute video includes segments from six of them: Martin Amis, Zadie Smith, Malcolm Gladwell, Joan Didion, Jonathan Franzen, and Fran Lebowitz. It offers a range of writing-related issues, including observation, style, writer's block, and productivity. 

WORDS ON THE LINE Celebrates a Decade

This post marks the 611th of WORDS ON THE LINE, precisely 10 years after I wrote the first one. Anyone who knows me would say that I stick things out, but I did not imagine when I started WORDS ON THE LINE that I would be blogging for as long as I have. I thought it might have a chance to outlive the gestation period of an elephant (1.8 years), but it has now outlived the average American marriage (8 years).

I can truly say that this blog was the beginning of my growing into an international consultant. For nearly 19 years after graduating from college, I taught and evaluated writing part time in corporate, government, and academic environments. In 1996, I jumped into communication consulting full time when I quit my job as a marketing director for a nonprofit agency and started my own business. During the next few years, I wrote numerous articles for the Institute of General Semantics the National Council of Teachers of English, the Star-Ledger, and started work on my instructional books The Art of On-the-Job Writing, The Art of E-mail Writing, and How to Write Fast Under Pressure. But it wasn't until around the time I began the WORDS ON THE LINE blog that I was traveling throughout the United States, India, China, and Malta on business. My webinars for several organizations are expanding their reach, and I am fielding questions about writing and assessing documents from the farthest reaches of the planet. 

Expect more of the same from WORDS ON THE LINE.