He goes into process of writing a book with razor sharp detail.

Start with Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.[0]

Then read more. Fiction, nonfiction, whatever you like. And when you think you've read enough, read more.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Writing:_A_Memoir_of_the_Cr...

  >> but the troubble with good writting is that there is no good way to get better. 

  On Writing (Stephen King)

  Bird by Bird

Some of the books on my list are:
The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí
Doctor Goebbels: His Life and Death
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
The Agony and the Ecstasy
Lust for Life
Carl Jung Memories, Dreams and Reflections.
Stephen King - On Writing

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-does-it-mean-to-ki...

Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts

The Art of Happiness, HH Dalai Lama

Getting Things Done (I know I'm late to the party...)

Shop Class as Soulcraft, Matthew Crawford (I heard about that one here, thank-you HN)

On Writing, Stephen King

Old Man And The Sea - Ernest Hemingway

IQ84 - Haruki Murakami

The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch

On Writing - Stephen King

When Bad Things Happen To Good People - Harold Kushner

Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger

Notes To Myself - Hugh Prather

- On Writing - Stephen King

- Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott

- Story - Robert McKee (screenwriting)

- Do the work - Stephen Pressfield (he's more famous for The War of Art but I haven't actually read that one yet)

Also there are some great blogs out there

- Terrible Minds by Chuck Wendig

- The Creative Penn - Joanna Penn

- Mary Robinette Kowal's blog

- John August (screenwriting)

I knew Harper Lee was alive from listening to the excellent audiobook On Writing, authored and narrated by Stephen King. He stated his astonishment that To Kill a Mockingbird was the only novel she ever wrote, but in a manner that never conveyed her gender (that I recall, anyway).

I even read the book years before without realizing that the author was a woman. It's the only assigned reading I have ever had that I couldn't put down.

> Don’t force it. I’ve gone weeks without writing anything. It happens.

I'm a reasonably prolific author (six books, two of them have fourth editions coming out in the coming year, all published by O'Reilly). Aspiring writers ask me for advice pretty regularly. (I'm happy to share, if anyone's interested and has questions.) One thing I always tell people is to read Stephen King's "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft" -- people dismiss his work because he's a horror writer, but in my opinion he's one of the best writers of the past century. This book is full of excellent advice to writers, especially aspiring book writers. I found it valuable to my own work, even as an author of technical books.

Most of Batnick's advice in his post is excellent, but I strongly agree with the advice not to force it. This excerpt from "On Writing" sums it up better than I can:

> Once I start work on a project, I don’t stop and I don’t slow down unless I absolutely have to. If I don’t write every day, the characters begin to stale off in my mind—they begin to seem like characters instead of real people. The tale’s narrative cutting edge starts to rust and I begin to lose my hold on the story’s plot and pace. Worst of all, the excitement of spinning something new begins to fade. The work starts to feel like work, and for most writers that is the smooch of death. Writing is at its best—always, always, always—when it is a kind of inspired play for the writer. I can write in cold blood if I have to, but I like it best when it’s fresh and almost too hot to handle.

(King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft (p. 153). Scribner. Kindle Edition.)

I recognize that feeling from my own work -- again, as a writer of non-fiction, technical books. I think it's an excellent model for anyone looking to write.

I also really like the Self-Publishing Podcast. If you're interested in being an indie author rather than pursuing traditional publishing, it's a fantastic look at three guys finding their way in that industry. The Writing Excuses podcast (recommended earlier by joanofarf) is a better podcast for the craft of writing, but I find the Self-Publishing guys both entertaining and inspirational.

One way is to get a mentor/guide/teacher. I believe it was Stephen King in "On Writing" who described one important lesson (adjectives are often superfluous) with a story: As a student he got a job as sport reporter. When he submitted his first draft, the editor immediately sat down and revised it. King noticed how he strikes lots of adjectives, understood that they were superfluous and was enlightened. Personally, I also experienced this. Lessons stick best if someone else corrects your text.

Another way is learn it by yourself. This way of learning is harder, but finding a good teacher is not easy either. How?

I believe the first step should be learning to notice mistakes. One idea would be to keep the rules in mind and read bad writing (most fan fiction for example). It should be easy to spot violations and this spotting should become a habit.

The second step is fix mistakes. Just fix the bad writing.

Now repeat. Use good writing and fix mistakes there.

If this becomes a habit, it kind of spoils you. You will see mistakes everywhere. As a programmer you know this feeling: Everybody's code looks ugly. The advantage is that you notice the mistakes in your own writing as well. This is the "selection" skill, which allows you to learn on your own.

Still, having somebody else is much easier. There are online communities for peer reviews. That is kind of a hybrid. The problem is: How good is your reviewer? If your reviewer is a great writer, why does he hang out in that community?

* The Road - Cormac McCarthy

* Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy

* No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

* On Writing - Stephen King

* 11/22/63 - Stephen King

* The Stand - Stephen King

* Hell's Angels - Hunter S. Thompson

* East of Eden - John Steinbeck

* Slouching Towards Bethlehem - Joan Didion

* In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin. First book I'm reading on a Kindle, so not yet sure how that will effect my perception of the novel (it is helpful for footnotes I've found). Absolutely fresh SciFi is rare these days so it's wonderful so far.

Most novels have a plot. But the good ones don't let you in on it. As you say, the characters rush around for MacGuffins, and you characterized it as "creaky"--that's a good word for it. I have not always been the biggest Stephen King fan (as an author; growing up in Maine, I've always been a fan of King-the-person) but On Writing is an excellent book. I don't have my copy right here so I can't quote what he says about plotting (paraphrased: "try not to") but this quote from an interview with Goodreads resonates strongly with me:

"I start a book like Doctor Sleep [his most recent book] knowing just two things: the basic situation and that the story will create its own patterns naturally and organically if I follow it fairly...and by fairly I mean never forcing characters to do things they wouldn't do in real life...For me, the first draft is all about story. I trust that some other part of me—an undermind—will create certain patterns."

So long as your beginnings and ends are only modestly far apart, short stories (and I again agree that Burning Chrome is probably his best work) let you get away with a lot more of this. But novella and novel-length works can't hide the machinery of a plotted-out story as well unless you are inordinately good at it. (And I mean, this is a ding against authors like J.R.R. Tolkien as much as Gibson; it's not like he isn't in good company with this weakness.)

As far as King's writing goes some of my favorite work of his are his short stories The Body (basis of the film Stand By Me) and The Breathing Method. You can find them in a few anthologies. The latter is actually my favorite for the odd way it's split into an inner and an outer stories and his vivid description of the 'club' and what it means to the character. I'm still puzzling over the possible metaphorical meaning of the story encapsulation there in relation to the symbolism of both. Or maybe there is none. Shrug. But it's an awesome piece.

I can't second this enough. I read it once a year, at least. King's writing nonfiction, he's writing nonfiction about writing, and yet his command of his own literary voice is so strong that you feel like he's sitting on the other side of the table from you. It's an amazing, honest book.

For this reason I avoid reading books for the most part, and probably read one book a year at best. My to-read list is short and highly scrutinized - I probably spend days making sure a book is worth the time and memory investment. Once I apply that logic, every book I've read has been extremely rewarding and I can at least write a few thousand word summary of each. I also constantly find instances in real life when I can use anecdotes from these books and people are surprised that I remember them. It also helps that for almost every book I deliberately sought out the best tome in the topic I wanted to learn more from.

My reading list from the past 5 years or so:

1. Making of the atomic bomb by Richard Rhodes
2. Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman
3. On Writing by Stephen King
4. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaccson
5. The Logic of Chance by Eugene Koonin
6. GEB (gave up on this one though)

> The book's toxic mix of purism, atavism, and personal eccentricity is not underpinned by a proper grounding in English grammar. It is often so misguided that the authors appear not to notice their own egregious flouting of its own rules ... It's sad.

> aging zombie of a book ... a hodgepodge, its now-antiquated pet peeves jostling for space with 1970s taboos and 1990s computer advice

I'm not saying that this book is terrible, just that it is mediocre, spits out good advice but not couched in good practice, is a bit old-fashioned, et cetera. There are better books out there. Stephen King's book On Writing is better in spite of the fact that Stephen King recommends Strunk and White.

I think that the reason people like the book is because it says things that you would agree with. "Omit needless words." How can you dislike a book that says such good things? But it doesn't surround the advice with solid examples the way Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace does, and it doesn't go into depth the way a proper style guide like Chicago does, and it doesn't have the more down-to-earth "how to be a writer" advice like King's or Lamott's works do.

So I don't recommend it.

(It's also quite curious that you quoted a tertiary source such as Wikipedia rather than King.)

As many other successful programmers have noted (Spolsky, Yegge) and demonstrated, effective communication, especially through writing, is a very useful and necessary skill for a programmer. So, maybe you should send him just some good books on writing well.

In general books, I can think of Strunk and White, On Writing (by Stephen King). But some examples of good writing about programming could also help:

The Best Software Writing (edited by Spolsky)

Joel on Software (the best articles from his blog)

Steve Yegge's blog posts (others might disagree but I think he is an excellent writer).

Paul Graham's essays

raganwald's old blog - http://weblog.raganwald.com/

James Hague's blog - http://prog21.dadgum.com/

Rands in Repose - http://randsinrepose.com/

1) On Writing Well - William Zinser https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-Nonfict...

2) On Writing - Stephen King- https://www.amazon.com/Writing-10th-Anniversary-Memoir-Craft...

3) The Elements of Style - Strunk & White - https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-Strunk/...

The two most important points are concise style and active voice. Both of these habits are critical for SEs to write concise emails, specs and commit messages. You will even see improvement in more casual day to day interactions (via slack, SMS etc).

1. Read great writing. If you want to write better nonfiction, read the masters of nonfiction. Michael Lewis. Tracy Kidder. Atul Gawande. Joseph Mitchell. Jon Krakauer. Christopher Hitchens. Tom Junod. If you want to write great fiction, read Murakami, Marquez, Palahniuk, Eggers, Hosseni, Oates, Atwood. (Shameless plug here, you can find stories by these folk at Byliner: http://www.byliner.com )

2. Read about writing. Some worthy books on this:

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King (really!)

The Practice of Writing, by David Lodge

The Writing Life, by Annie Dillard

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott

Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction, by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd

To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction, by Phillip Lopate

3. As already mentioned upthread, practice. Write something every day.

4. If you're not confident in your writing, apply your MVP lessons. Write short sentences. Use as few words as possible. Rid your sentences of adjectives and adverbs. Study your verb choices. Ditch the complex punctuation and dependent clauses. Ask yourself, What's the least amount of "writing" necessary to convey this idea or image?

5. Have fun.

Stephen King - On Writing:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0743455967?tag=0596800673-20&c...;

This is what Roger Ebert said about the book:

"A lot of people were outraged that he [King] was honored at the National Book Awards, as if a popular writer could not be taken seriously. But after finding that his book On Writing had more useful and observant things to say about the craft than any book since Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, I have gotten over my own snobbery."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Writing

Good luck!

Here are my (crappy) notes:

* The golden rule: read a lot, write a lot.

* Have a place for only writing and concentrating. Do nothing else there.

* Everyone has an innate talent ceiling. A good writer won't progress beyond being a merely good writer.

* Story > plot. Stories can 'write themselves,' it's hard to plan up front.

* He doesn't write for symbolism or metaphor directly, but may notice it as he's writing and fold some in.

* Let the first draft age for a while before revisiting. His ideal time is 6 weeks.

* "Kill your darlings." Aka be willing let a concept go even if it seems great.

* Have an ideal audience in mind when writing. He says that his is 1 person - his wife. He says it should be 1 person.

* 2nd draft = 1st draft - 10%

* He's not a fan of adverbs

* Research is inevitable for backstory. He wanted to write a story that took place in a specific location, so he went there to see how it was so he wouldn't get things too wrong. He doesn't worry about it too much though, unlike a writer like Tom Clancy.

* He writes because he likes to, ostensibly not for money or anything else

* He gets a TON of angry letters and criticisms, particularly for his use of vulgarity.

* A lot of characters are based on people or stereotypes he encountered in his working class upbringing.

One thing that struck me is how much he reads. He had a list of suggested books to read in the back page, and there were probably hundreds

Obviously not all of the points apply to all types of writing, his list is very King-centric. If you've ever read him then the points will make more sense in context. For example, story > plot is definitely a "king-ism" since his stories are off the cuff and meandering. I couldn't even get through half of the Dark Tower series since it seemed like the plot wasn't going anywhere. In any case, I don't think you'll get very far writing software without identifying some of the "plot" up front.

King is against detailed description of characters -- (paraphrased) "If I describe character too much, it conflicts with your view of them."

He's also against overly detailed description of places -- (paraphrased) "Keep it brief. You want to give a description of the room, it's not a travelogue."

I also read Steven Kings book, "On Writing." Even though it's about prose, one of the most important things I took away from it is this: if I want to be a good ______ I need to show up, every day and _______. Usually, I won't know when I did good ______ until after the fact and if I don't ______, every day, I won't be able to measure myself and improve on my previous efforts.

This has helped me continue to plug away (at work, on my own time) and seek out interesting challenges that will help me to mark small, identifiable milestones of improvement.

I see this in many things, not just programming or writing.

I've read Stephen King's On Writing and several other books on novel writing and as a programmer what I really liked about The Story Grid was its analytical approach to storytelling, as opposed to a more emotional, intuitive, "just keep writing and eventually the good stuff will come" approach.

For the 180 degree opposite way of doing it, check out Stephen King's "On Writing" - he creates characters, fleshes out their personality, puts them in weird situations, and lets them figure it out. It's why he's gotten so many books out, though you do some serious deus ex machina type events in his works, as well as interesting books just petering out and dying after a strong start. But hey, he's shipped a lot of books, and some of them are pretty stories. I'd definitely recommend On Writing for anyone who wants to do any serious amount of writing.

The other book I'd recommend is The Pyramid Principle[2] by Barbara Minto.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-10th-Anniversary-Memoir-Craft...

[2]: https://www.amazon.com/Pyramid-Principle-Logic-Writing-Think...

Omit needless words. There's a page in Stephen King's autobiography "On Writing" where he shows an editor's comments on an article he wrote as a teenager. Half of the words are crossed out. Remembering that example improved my writing significantly.

Also, understand that writing is an iterative process. It can take 5-6 passes to craft a good sentence.

So if you came here to know how to write, Stephen King wrote a book "On Writing" that is quite interesting and mostly reads like a novel. See it as a "I'll read this and I'll get motivated to write".

If you came here to understand how to get into blogging: just start. Create a wordpress, and just start writing. Focus on content, not on form. After a while, you can think about a domain name, about a custom theme, or about hosting this yourself on github with hugo. But don't start with the technical parts of managing a blog, just write.

If you came here to understand how you can become a good technical writer: keep writing. Consistence over years of writing is what makes you a good writer. The ultimate technique for me is to give an interactive talk to people about your ideas, and see where your audience get stuck, where they ask questions, how different ways of explaining something get the point across.

Malcolm Gladwell does more than this: he explains an idea multiple times in different ways. If you have the page count to do this, do it. Different people need different ways of explaining.

(shameless plug: I'm writing a book on crypto https://www.manning.com/books/real-world-cryptography?a_aid=...)

by Stephen King

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10569.On_Writing

MOS 6502 series data book.

Moto 6809 Programmers Reference.

I actually had someone take me to the local Motorola office to get the 6809 book. Docs were free for the asking, and a kid asking was quite the event. Aspects of that conversation were important to my life.

I still have occasion to do paid work, and enjoy fun projects with both chips, and or variants seen today. These are few and far between, but very enjoyable. Mostly perspective and nostalgia in these. It's my roots.

The One Minute Manager parable has served me well mentoring and leading.

On Writing by Stephen King. Being able to tell a story with clarity has far more utility than one would expect. Besides, I want to write a novel one day.

The Art of Electronics, second edition. Probably need to update that one.

A Tektronix "How to use an Oscilloscope" book, well matched to my old, analog 400Mhz, 4 channel scope.

ANSI / ASME geometric dimensioning, tolerancing, standards books. 2D technical communication remains significant in my life.

Recent addition: Mold making Handbook.

I need a good primer and a good polymer tech reference. Any suggestions?

"Pirates of the Asteroids", childhood sci-fi. Again, perspective. Was the first one I really read through and got as a kid. Kept it, because asshole reminder. 'Nuff said. It's just a personal totem.

While I find 'The Oatmeal' to be somewhat boring and trite, I don't begrudge those who like it their enjoyment, nor do I begrudge the author his income.

- "On Intelligence" and "I am a Strange Loop" - how mind works.

- "Rework", "Zero to One", "Start Small, Stay Small" - insightful startup advice.

- Fun autobiographies: Ghost in the Wires (Kevin Mitnick), iWoz (Steve Wozniak), Catch me if you can (Frank Abagnale), Just for Fun (Linus Torvalds), Elon Musk, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

- How companies work: Creativity Inc (Pixar), In the Plex (Google)

- On writing: Art of fiction/nonfiction by Ayn Rand, Story by Robert McKee, Save the Cat, Step by Step to Standup Comedy.

- Other: The Selfish Gene, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Serious Creativity, Hackers & Painters, Hacking Growth, Angel (on angel investing, by Jason Calacanis).

Also collections of essays by Paul Graham [1] and Scott Alexander [2]:

[1] https://www.dropbox.com/s/2no0sqybnxurpcd/Paul%20Graham%20-%...

[2] https://www.dropbox.com/s/i43lqpdyd4qa255/The%20Library%20of...

Actually, that advise was basically ripped from Stephen Kings book, On Writing. He basically advises to write. Finish. Set aside the novel for several weeks, then pick it up and reread it fresh.

Read that book. It pretty much get's it down for you.

One thing to keep in mind is that interviews are pretty bad for finding tips on writing. In On Writing, Stephen King pretty much says that what he says in interviews is made to sound good, because the truth isn't as interesting.

But seriously, that book right there pretty much nails it in the head.

Now, at the end of the day, you do what works for you, of course. But at the end of the day, it's all about writing. If you've found some other method to get your writing done, great. Who am I to argue. But seriously, the best advise I can give to someone having trouble writing is to just write. You don't seem to have that problem, if your schedule is set and you've been doing it.

I guess my advise is more geared toward those who aren't writing, and want to. They ask the questions like: what word processor do you use? or do you use a notebook and pen? or when do you write? Questions that sound interesting. It's soft of like the GTD fad. Everyone is so consumed with the tools of GTD and ignore actually getting things done!

=)

And yes, good discussion. Wish I could give more karma!

Also interesting is that I think King's latest movie, A Good Marriage (2014), may have been loosely based on an idea he submits as a exercise to the reader in On Writing: iirc, King describes a situation which involves a woman estranged from her abusive husband being home alone while the child is at school and the husband unexpected comes into the house.

King asks the reader to write a short story based on this situation and send him and to send him an email with the story and the readers thoughts and how they came to write it.

I've not seen the movie or read Full Dark, No Stars (2010) that contained the novella it is based on, but that situation seemed similar.

I would emphasize Tenner's "read a lot" and "write a lot" parts. You should edit your own work, of course, but often you don't have the skills to do so incredibly effectively until you've built up a lot of knowledge about what works and what doesn't, which you won't be able to do until you've read a lot and written a lot.

Also, if you read one or two books about writing, you'll be much better off. A handful I consult regularly: 1) Write Right! (a simple, ~90 page book on grammar and rules that will see you through 99% of situations); 2) How Fiction Works, by James Wood (which is mostly about noticing what you read); 3) On Writing Well by William Zissner (a perennial recommendation); 4) On Writing by Steven King (which is so fun to read that it's hard _not_ to recommend).

On Writing by Stephen King. This a biography masquerading as a book on writing advice... Or its the other way around. Whichever it is, I think it's a great book for any aspiring writer to read. King explains the basics on how to get started, how to persevere and through his experiences, how not to handle success. Full of honesty and simple, effective advice.

Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari. Most people agree that the War on Drugs is lost and has been lost for decades now. But why did we fight it in the first place? Why do some continue to believe it's the correct approach? How has it distorted outcomes in society and how can we recognise and prevent such grotesque policies in the future? This book offers some of those answers.

Only if you're Indian - India After Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha. Sadly almost every Indian I've met isn't well informed about anything that happened in India after 1947, the year India became independent. History stops there because that's the final page of high school history textbooks. An uninformed electorate leads to uninformed policy, like "encouraging" the use of a single language throughout the country. If I were dictator, I'd require every Indian to read this book.

1. Most interesting, overall: Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter

2. Best in Hard Sci-fi: Foundation's Edge by Asimov

3. Best in Business: Customer-Centric Selling by Michael T. Bosworth, John R. Holland, Frank Visgatis

4. Best in Technology: An Introduction to MultiAgent Systems by Michael J. Wooldridge

5. Best in Mythology: Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

6. Best in "Deserves a mention regardless of category": On Writing by Stephen King

7. Best in Mathematics: A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science by Barbara Oakley

8. Best in Biography: The Man Who Tamed Lightning by Floyd Miller (biography of Charles Proteus Steinmetz)

[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/14999185

* Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, Joseph Bizup

* The Chicago Manual of Style (depending on what kind of writer you are, a different guide may suit you better)

* Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott

* On Writing, Stephen King

2-Diffusion of Innovations by Everett M. Rogers. This book makes "Crossing the chasm" a simplistic introduction for laggards

3-The Art of War by Sun Tzu

4-If Nature Is the Answer, What Was the Question? By Jorge Wagensberg

5-Sacred hoops by Phil Jackson

6-Fear from freedom by Erich Fromm

7-Michelangelo biography of a genious

8-Blindness by Jose Saramago

9-On writing by Stephen King

I think in On Writing, he claims to have almost no recollection of writing Cujo.

Seriously, though, reading On Writing or Danse Macabre is fun. His style, as I recall is come up with a premise and characters, amd tell the story they lead you to. His experiments with more formal planning and plotting he feels are weaker.

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.

I’m a slow reader, but I usually get through seventy or eighty books a year, mostly fiction. I don’t read in order to study the craft; I read because I like to read. It’s what I do at night, kicked back in my blue chair. Similarly, I don’t read fiction to study the art of fiction, but simply because I like stories. Yet there is a learning process going on. Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones"

Can't recommend enough this book. Peek inside the mind of the master of writing in Plain English and one of the greatest modern storytellers. For me one of the best non-fiction books out there. Wish more artists produced something like this.

    ...in On Writing, Stephen King writes: "There is little or no detectable bullshit in that book. (Of course, its short; at eighty-five pages it's much shorter than this one.) I'll tell you right now that every aspiring writer should read The Elements of Style. Rule 17 in the chapter titled Principles of Composition is "Omit needless words." I will try to do that here".

Interesting: Virginia Tufte is the mother of data visualization guru Edward Tufte.

(Other good books for writers and writers-in-training: "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamont, Stephen King's "On Writing" and a collection of letters on writing by F. Scott Fitzgerald, also called "On Writing". Oh, and please don't hate on White's "Elements of Style" --- it may be old, but it's foundational.)

I'd recommend Stephen King's "On Writing", Ray Bradbury "Zen and the Art of Writing", and "Ernest Hemingway on Writing". All have great insights into the joy and struggles of writing, but each on makes you want to be a great writer.

Best of luck keeping it up!

I would agree that the first section does not say a great deal about writing, but the second section reminded me of sitting in my High School english class with my favorite teacher writing a couple sentences on the board as an example and passionately (oops) dissecting the structure with arrows and margin notes to explain how and why a certain picture was playing in my mind while reading them.

Placing King's personal anecdotes and thoughts about the "life of a writer" before the actual lesson felt to me, when I began the second section, like I was sitting in the classroom of an artist who has far more passion for his work than I have ever felt for anything in my life before then. It made the writing lesson more impactful, if anything.

But it certainly had a lot to say about writing.

Also any idea on how StimulusReflex / new Hotwire compares to Phoenix LiveView if you have had a chance to look at it yet?

"I made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it short."
-- Blaise Pascal

My friend and I used to laugh at this quote because we thought it wasn't true. Now we laugh because we know it is.

Good writing is not necessarily good speech, as you've noted. Learning technical writing is a superpower — I would recommend The Essentials of Technical Communication. A chemistry teacher once introduced it alongside a Vonnegut quote:

"It would never occur to me, to look for the best minds of my generation in an undergraduate English department anywhere. I would certainly try the physics department or the music department first."

Technical writing and writing for emotional impact both have their place. Learn both, and learn when to employ them. You may find yourself appreciating that Thoreau quote one day.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10569.On_Writing

One of the things he mentions in his book is to be judicious in editing your own texts, removing any words that do not add to the actual message that you're trying to get across. For instance, in the last sentence, I ought to have removed the word 'actual'.

I think some of this advice could probably apply to this article as well.

bloggergirl 21 hours ago | link [dead]

I'll add to this list my all-time favorite writing companion: Virginia Tufte's "Grammar As Style". It's been out of print forever, which is tragic, and, when you can find it, it usually sells for over $100 - even in rough shape. "Artful Sentences" is meant to replace "Grammar As Style", but I prefer the original. If you want to tie all the rules together so you can understand why we even have grammar in the first place and how truly magical grammar can be to shaping a sentence or paragraph, track down this book.

Interesting: Virginia Tufte is the mother of data visualization guru Edward Tufte.

(Other good books for writers and writers-in-training: "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamont, Stephen King's "On Writing" and a collection of letters on writing by F. Scott Fitzgerald, also called "On Writing". Oh, and please don't hate on White's "Elements of Style" --- it may be old, but it's foundational.)

A favorite book on this subject is 'on writing' by stephen king. One thing he describes that is important to all improvement is a feedback cycle, in other words, write, get criticisms, then re-write. I've found anecdotally that many good writers had a period in their life where they would re-write the same things many times. "Writing is re-writing" the quote goes.

Personally Ive found that I have to work on silencing the inner critic. If not, I find it difficult to write much of anything. My matra is usually 'get the basic idea down, then worry about it later' in rewriting of course.

PG's writings on this are also relevant: http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html

Reading about writing will help too. “The Elements of Style” is great, as is Stephen King’s “On Writing” (for the latter, ignore the parts focused on fiction).

It begins “Look - here’s a table covered with a red cloth.” https://www.google.ca/amp/s/mukundacharan.wordpress.com/2011...

As someone like you who hates too much description, I’m comforted in the idea that judicious description is a skill to be appreciated.

I think this is an exercise in awareness, which would be of particular value to the HN crowd. Apple's products are often castigated because their construction/composition/stats go against the preferences of a part of the highly tech-savvy crowd. However, this criticism doesn't take into account the intended audience. There is something similar at work with Ruby and Ruby on Rails. Certain purists might find the language impure and the Rails DSL too focused on a particular way of doing things, but there is a large audience that really likes and benefits from using that software.

While I find 'The Oatmeal' to be somewhat boring and trite, I don't begrudge those who like it their enjoyment, nor do I begrudge the author his income.

Well said! (Better than I did.) I don't begrudge either of those. I also hope no one in this society [1] begrudges my right to express my opinion.

[1] - Deliberately ambiguous, as it's widely applicable.

The second half of his book tells the story of how he was practically killed by a drunk driver of a pickup truck when he was walking along the road minding his own business. He describes the massive injuries. He explains how On Writing is a direct product of that experience. He explains how he bought the pickup from the guy and smashed it to bits with a sledgehammer. Give it another go. It's well worth it.

True, but not in the sense you mean. Certain arts die off and certain ones flourish. There is tons more digital art and computer animation, and less poetry and jazz artists. Why are you preferring one over another? Both are equally valid, except digital art and computer animation you can make a living off of.

> Personal projects like freelancing can put your home at risk.

How exactly is that? You might have to still work a job for stable income. Read Stephen King's "On Writing". He says that the idea that a creative person needs large chunks of uninterrupted time is ridiculous. If you really want to do something, you'll make time to do it.

> At least in Spain, people until their 30s live in the parents home because they cant get a decent job in many cases.

Why is that a problem? The idea of moving out at an early age has arisen with the baby boom generation. It's quite a recent phenomenon. In asia, you're not expected to move out until you get married and have a family. What's your point?

https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/33942804-phillip-rhode...

Out of those, which ones would I pick as "the best"? Hmm... I guess I'd single out the following for mention:

Non-fiction:

A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science - Barbara Oakley

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft - Stephen King

CustomerCentric Selling - Michael Bosworth

The Prime Solution: Close the Value Gap, Increase Margins, and Win the Complex Sale - Jeff Thull

The Man Who Tamed Lightning - Floyd Miller

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid - Douglas Hofstadter

Mastering the Complex Sale: How to Compete and Win When the Stakes Are High! - Jeff Thull

Fiction:

Zero Sum Game - S.L. Huang

The Institute - Stephen King

The Night Window - Dean Koontz

Blue Moon - Lee Child

One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Love In The Time Of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Problem Of Pain by C S Lewis

Disgrace by J M Coetzee

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek

On Writing by Stephen King

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Dictionary Of The Khazars by Milorad Pavic

Candide by Voltaire

The Labyrinth Of Solitude | Life And Thought In Mexico by Ocavio Paz

I finished that last one today. Read this:

All men, at some moment in their lives, feel themselves to be alone. And they are. To live is to be separated from what we were in order to approach what we are going to be in the mysterious future. Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another. His nature -- if that word can be used in reference to man, who has "invented" himself by saying "No" to nature -- consists in his longing to realize himself in another. Man is nostalgia and a search for communion. Therefore, when he is aware of himself he is aware of his lack of another, that is, of his solitude.

I recommend this old book.

1. Politics and the English Language (Orwell)
2. The Age of the Essay (Graham).
3. On Writing (Stephen King)
4. On Writing Well (Zinsser)
5. The Elements of Style (Strunk and White)
6. Essential English for Journalists, Editors, and Writers (Evans)

Seriously, read the On Writing book. It really set his theory up for me to understand exactly why he's inconsistent. You can read his books and tell when he's thinking and processing, versus when he's writing to pay for a car or house or whatever.

I have sentimental attachments to Man Out of Time, the Tesla biography.

No Man Knows My History is about Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church. It is naturally controversial to the LDS, for its depiction of Smith as a polygamist con man who fell sideways into a religious racket and never quite fell out. I found it very readable, full of color. It might depend on your interest in the period and the subject matter.

Stephen King's On Writing is about half biography, half writing manual. I thought it was terrific. It's had several rereads already.

Steven King's On Writing

Zinsser's On Writing Well

Also, some of the posts are recommending one book instead of another book, but being counted as a recommendation for the book that's not being recommended.

For example, someone recommended the Algorithm Design Manual as an alternative to Introduction to Algorithms, but its counted for the latter.

You could carry out this exact exercise with any style guide, even a bland and inoffensive one like the Chicago Manual of Style (which barely even gets into stylistic issues). The books to compare Strunk & White with are not grammar textbooks (I don't know why Pullum keeps doing this) but things like Steven Pinker's A Sense of Style or Ben Yagoda's The Sound on the Page or Zinsser's On Writing Well or Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft etc.

I have said all this in the answer I linked to in the comment above (and comments on other answers at that question), so now I'll stop getting drawn into the same argument again. :-)

Missing is his hatred of adverbs; To King's mind "He screamed angrily" is a terrible sentence because it uses the -ly construction to say what should be clear in context. So with precious few exceptions he scraps all the -ly's and lets his characters' actions do the talking.

New projects weren't having as much an impact and making me feel good, so I sat around reading books.

A turning point came when I read two: Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and On Writing by Stephen King. The first teaches we get optimal experience out of what we spend our attention on. It really got me psyched about chasing that feeling of being in the zone with my work. On Writing did that too. I saw another HN poster refer to King's "blue collar work ethic" -- totally true. He works hard because he loves to.

I recently started working again for pleasure, less encumbered by insecurities. I'm still working on it, still practicing. I created an open source framework for Amazon Echo development, and it's starting to get some traction. I think I was able to produce the work to get the traction because I've had a clearer mind.

Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson

Artificial Life - Steven Levy

On Writing - Stephen King

Machine Learning for Hackers - Drew Conway and John Myles White

How Doctors Think - Jerome Goopman

Cholesterol Clarity: What The HDL Is Wrong With My Numbers? - Jimmy Moore & Eric C. Westman

Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco - Bryan Burrough & John Helyar

Honestly I think the guy writes whatever he pleases because he knows he's got a permanent fan base. But thanks for your note; I will finish reading the second half.

"Learning mathematics takes time, and it has always astonished me how much better I understand material when I go back to it, months or years later, than when I first studied it.

. . . .

"Certainly I had little understanding of how an area of mathematics fitted together: my learning at University consisted of reading strings of definitions and theorems, with little idea where it was all going, making sure I understood each result before going on to the next one, until, perhaps, in the last lecture of the course the lecturer would say something like "and so we have now classified all Lie algebras" and I would suddenly find out what the point of it all had been."

Fields medalist Terence Tao has quite a few good articles on the work of a research mathematician on his blog. Searching around just now (while looking for something else, which Google didn't turn up), I found his post "On writing,"

http://terrytao.wordpress.com/advice-on-writing-papers/

which links to several articles by other mathematicians on how they learn and think about mathematics to write it up for other mathematicians to read.

    The Visual Display of Quantitative Information 
    The Rust Programming Language 
    Progressive Web Apps 
    Permaculture: Principles and Pathways beyond Sustainability 
    Farming the Woods 
    Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms 
    Affinity Designer Workbook 
    The Age of Surveillance Capitalism 
    Walden 
    A Guide for Desert and Dryland Restoration 
    Ernest Hemingway On Writing 
    The Two Hands of God (Alan Watts) 
    The Anarchist's Design Book and/or With the Grain: A Craftsman's Guide to Wood 
    Dune 
    Some other fiction reading I'll decide on after I finish Dune

    Tao of Physics, Web of Life, Systems View of Life, etc. (Fritjof Capra) 
        ^Capra's work has heavily influenced my worldview and ability to think in systems

    Designing Data Intensive Applications (just finishing this week)
    Permaculture One & Two, Gaia's Garden, Edible Forest Gardens I&II
    Black Swan, Antifragile, etc. (Nassim Taleb) 
    Cloud Hidden: Whereabouts Unknown (Alan Watts, written late in life) 
    Ishmael, Story of B, etc. (Daniel Quinn) 
    You are Not a Gadget, Who Owns the Future, etc. (Jaron Lanier) 
    Goethe's Italian Journey   
    Vonnegut, Hemingway, Steinbeck 
    The Wheel of Time

• The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

• The Lean Startup

• Poke the Box

• The Elements of Computing Systems

• The Death of Common Sense

• Up the Organization

• The Personal MBA

• The Wisdom of No-Escape

• The Adapted Mind

• Brain Rules

• Getting Things Done

• On Writing

• Steal Like An Artist

• George Orwell: A Collection of Essays

And these are technically not books, but Glenn Greenwald's "Speech to the Massachusetts ACLU" and the Christopher Hitchens speech criticizing the proposed Canadian hate speech law.

1. First You Write a Sentence by Joe Moran - https://amzn.to/3m2Hq8N

2. Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose - https://amzn.to/3dEXY3M

3. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King - https://amzn.to/3mfLFhF

In terms of technical content, there is a course for technical writers on pluralsight - https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/technical-writing-softwa...

In short, I do not recommend the passive voice. The Elements of Style has a rule against it, and I read the same point later in life in a passage from Stephen King's On Writing.

But you don't have to believe them. You can figure out why they recommend it for yourself.