I was just looking through some of my old notes from writing classes I took when I still lived in Minnesota and ran across a handout with the title "A Peevish Little Guide to Prose Style for Creative Non-Fiction Writers" and it has some quirky writing tips. Here are a few of my favorites:
"If creative writing were like 'Wheel of Fortune,' you should have to buy adverbs."
"If you don't know why you are writing in incomplete sentences, you probably should complete them."
"You never outgrow your need for a thesaurus."
"Strunk and White are still all right."
I feel better now. I still own a copy of Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style," though I can't remember the last time I opened it. And I sometimes grab the paperback thesaurus out of my desk drawer at work or off of my bookshelf at home out of desperation to replace a word I've used too many times or to find a word that's on the tip of my tongue but not flowing through my fingertips to the keyboard.
I miss The Loft in downtown Minneapolis where I took this class on creative non-fiction writing. It was a cool haven for writers of all types, with a little coffee shop and a bookstore that stocked books by local writers. The classes were all in a really cool old brick building remodeled with exposed brick and duct work -- very industrial-chic.
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