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On Writing - I’ve been collecting these links about the craft of writing for some time (since I ain’t ‘zactly no expert or nothin’), and there’s a new one to make it a critical mass. The ever fine folks at A List Apart give you “10 Tips on Writing for the Living Web”: “Some of these sites change every week; many change every day; a few change every few minutes. Daypop’s Dan Chan calls this the Living Web, the part of the web that is always changing [...] Writing for the Living Web is a tremendous challenge. Here are ten tips that can help.”

Once you’ve read that, if you want something more meaty, how about George Orwell, from 1946, “Politics and the English Language”: “A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible.”

Orwell talks about dying metaphors, operators or verbal false limbs, pretentious diction, and suggests the questions one should ask about each sentence about to be written: “What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?”

I also have a few links regarding the nuts and bolts of writing, like this one from Evolt, because as they say, “good writing doesn’t happen automatically. It takes planning and organization. If you’re intimidated about writing, or just don’t know where to start, this outline will help.” In addition to covering outlines, it provides links to style manuals.

And at the risk of dredging up horrid school memories, next, we have ... Sentence Diagramming (audible shuddering heard around the web). Gertrude Stein said, “I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences,” but I don’t think the poor girl got out much. Joseph R. Mallon Jr. offers a more plausible quote: “Sentence diagramming is one of the best analytical techniques I ever learned.” In addtion to the link above, for a good refresher course, this one will take you back to high school.

I would add, in any craft, tools are important. Are you writing for the web solely within the text entry window of your favorite weblog program? Sure, it’s easy ... that’s they way it was designed, in fact, what’s made it so popular. Type some, click a button, bingo-bango, instant publishing. But the writing process may require something far less “instant.” You may need more room for your thoughts than can be found within a cramped 400 pixel wide text entry box. You may need to save them, and come back to them later to edit, or freshly rethink. Unfortunately, even with things like the “draft” capability of Moveable Type, weblog publishing applications don’t yet do a good job of offering “room to write.” Both physically, and in terms of time. For at least some of your online writing, you need to use another tool to compose, then paste the results into your weblog app. Personally, I use NoteTab Pro (for many things), and couldn’t live without it.

And I leave you with words of warning from Orwell: “But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you -- even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent -- and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.”