Table of Contents
Introduction: Can't We Just Text or Something? 1
Why Write? 7
1 The "I" at the Center of "Write" 9
2 I-Thou Relationships 21
3 Writing as Exploration of Self 37
4 Writing as Exploration of Subject 47
5 Writing as a Locus of Play 65
Interlude: The Writer's Seven (or However Many) Deadly Sins 77
What to Write and How 85
6 Tell Yourself What You Want to Say 87
7 Voice Actor 99
8 Beginning Before You Begin 111
9 Beginnings 125
10 The Part Between the Ends 139
11 Endings 155
12 Don't Edit a Flying Leap 163
13 The Problem with Process 173
14 Detailing Your Prose (1) 181
Soaring Practice 189
15 Exercises from Literature 191
16 Writing Exercises That Illuminate Academic or Professional Tasks 201
17 Sentences and Their Friends 213
Interlude: Rules to Live, or at Least Write, By 227
18 Oh, Yeah? Prove It! 231
19 Even the Nile Has a Source 241
20 Revision: It Ain't Pretty, But … 251
21 Detailing Your Prose (2) 261
Conclusion: The Exquisite Pain of Never Being Quite Finished 275
Appendix: Bold Statements (and Bald-Faced Truths) 281
Acknowledgments 287
Index 289