Friday, May 26, 2006

Recommended Books for Writers

There are a lot of books about writing out there. This list doesn't pretend to be exhaustive; in fact, it's my hope that you'll use the "comments" section of this blog entry to tell about what books have helped you, and why!

Stay tuned; later on, I'll share some books about style, grammar, and the nuts and bolts of writing correctly with you.

But to start things off, and in no particular order, here's what I recommend:

• Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing by Claire K. Cook
  
• Story by Robert McKee
  
• Thinking Like Your Editor by Susan Rabiner et. al.
  
• On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner
  
• Beginnings, Middles, and Ends by Nancy Kress
  
• Guerrilla Marketing for Writers By Jay Conrad Levinson et. al.
  
• How To Write A Book Proposal by Michael Larsen
  
• The well-Fed Writer by Peter Bowerman
  
• Publicize Your Book! by Jacqueline Deval
  

I have found all of these books to be useful; they all have a place on my bookshelf and I hope you'll consider giving them a place on yours.

And they all belong, of course... beyond the elements of style!

# posted by Jeannette Cézanne : 1:05 PM

Why is This Blog in Black and White?Admit it: that's what first caught your eye. After all, the Web is all about graphics, color, flash. It's so entertaining that we can easily get lost in it.

And perhaps that's the point. At some level the Web has perhaps become too entertaining. At some level, the medium threatens to become more important than the message. There's so much "stuff" to see and do and interact with that we forget why we're there.

And that's not what this blog is about. This blog is all about words. I don't want you to look at pretty graphics or fancy flash presentations; I want you to join me in thinking... about words, about writing, about publishing.

So it's in black and white.

Of course, you realize that I'm playing with you here. The visuals do matter: by being in black and white, this blog really stands out on the Web. Graphically, I'm contrasting the elegance of the font used in "beyond" with the plainness of the "Elements of Style" -- in other words, beyond the elements of style is... elegance.

Which brings us back to words. Hopefully throughout this blog you'll learn something, disagree with me about something, be challeneged to think about something, and all of it a step or two beyond what you were taught in English class.

So please join me... beyond the elements of style!

— Jeannette Cézanne, founder and president, Customline Wordware, Inc.

About Me

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Links

• Customline Wordware, Inc. (for great writing and editing!)
• Virtual Tales (read books as serials!)
• Bartleby's (all about words)
• Apostrophe Protection Society (yes, it really does exist!)
• Omniglot
• Zoetrope Virtual Studio (critique groups)
• Forward Motion for Writers (critique groups)
• Internet Writing Workshop (critique groups)
• Predators and Editors
• Ampers& Virgule
• Miss Snark (agent extraordinaire)
• Evil Editor (why you're not getting published)

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