INTRODUCTION
Many people from many corners of my life---** writers and aspiring writers** , ** students and former students**---have seen that picture.
存疑:加粗
Since then writing has gone electronic. Computers have replaced the typewriter, the delete key has replaced the wastebasket, and various other keys insert, move and rearrange whole chunks of text. But nothing has replaced the writer. He or she is still stuck with the same old job of saying something that other people will want to read.
赏析:这段话太值得背诵了!写作从纸笔为工具演化成为electronic,什么变了什么没变呢?工具变了,但是作者一直都是“人”。这时我在想,“人”到底有什么不一样呢?只有作家(而非机器)才能知道what other people want to read。所以从这里开始,我就知道writing must have something with thinking.
仿写: Since then communication has gone instant. Emails have replaced the old paper-and-ink letters, the short text-messages have replaced the telegraphs, and various social websites have enjoyed increasing popularity among the public. But nothing has replaced real interaction. You are still "talking to" or "hearing from" a human being.
I had long considered him as my model as a writer. His was the ** seemingly effortless style--- achieved, I knew, with great effort**---that I wanted to emulate, and whenever I began a new project I would first read some White to get his cadences into my ear.
赏析:1. 插入语。2. “拼命努力才能看上去毫不费力” 3. get his cadences into my ear,一定要去读一些White的作品去“找节奏”。
My purpose is to make myself and my experience available. If readers connect with my book it's because they don't think they are hearing from an English professor. They are hearing from a working writer.
赏析:我在此处学到的是一个人的identities。所做之事取决于某个特定的角色。
仿写:If you connect with my story it's because you are not hearing from a single women. You are hearing from a hard-working mother of two little children. 造这个句子是因为它会有比较强的场景感,比较夸张,好记。不知道用的是不是正确。
I had no inkling of the electronic marvels that would soon revolutionalize the act of writing.
赏析:学习inkling的用法。
On one level the new ** torrent** is good news.
But, as always, there's a catch.
Nobody told all the new computer writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they're writing fluently doesn't mean they're writing well.
赏析:喜欢这几句话的逻辑。experience≠expertise;catch的用法也值得学习。
Two opposite things happened: good writers got better and bad writers got worse. Good writers welcomed the gift of being able to fuss endlessly with their sentences---prunting and revising and reshaping---without the drudgery of retyping. Bad writers became even more verbose because writing was suddenly so easy and their sentences looked so pretty on the screen. How could such beautiful sentences not be perfect?
赏析:Zinsser 是怎么做到把话说得这么清楚而且笔墨使用恰到好处的。
That will still require plain old hard thinking---what E.B. White was doing in his boathouse---and the plain old tools of the English language.
赏析:
Principle 1 the Transaction
Whatever form the sentences take will reflect the writer at his most natural.
赏析:这个意思我用中文都可能表达不好。当时的心境由当时的语言来呈现,改变一丝一毫都不是那一刻的我。
There are all kinds of writers and all kinds of methods, and any method that helps you to say what you want to say is the right method for you.
赏析:适合自己的才是对的。
Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of gimmicks to "personalize" the author. It's a question of using the English language in a way that will achieve the greatest clarity and strength.
赏析:HUAMNITY & WARMTH
Summary
我彻底入坑,从没想到几十年的一本书能让我看的这么舒服。语言清晰中还透着智慧。The Transaction的一章中,身为职业作家的Zinsser和业余作家Brock每一组对立的回答,互相都不能理解彼此,Zinsser说maybe I should take up surgery on the side。我没忍住,笑出了声音。