I read to learn. It's therapeutic and it makes me feel like I'm taking steps, however small, toward becoming a better person/entrepreneur/marketer/writer/Christian/whatever. For some reason, I've come to expect the author to tell me what I need to know, why I need to know it and move on. I think it came from reading Seth Godin's books. They're concise, small and packed with valuable marketing insights that I can usually apply the second I read the words.
His blog is like that, The Dip is like that, Purple Cow is like that, All Marketers Are Liars is like that. Meatball Sundae, however, is not. It's redundant, it's ambiguous and there is way too much excess. Maybe it's the "microwave culture" that old people tell us we live in, but excess is irritating. I picked up Small Giants tonight, by Bo Burlingham... excess. Ok, that's not fair, I've only read the (long) introduction. But, so far it's gems of value hidden and disguised by lots and lots of words. I'm looking forward to reading it, but I really hate having to sift while I read.
If you're reading a novel, excess is necessary. If you're reading to learn, excess will drive you crazy.
3 comments:
Hmmm.... So there's lots of advice that we should turn back on ourselves as writers, right? We need to avoid excess in our writing. We need to pare it down to the essentials so that our readers don't have to do the paring themselves.
Have you seen The Elements of Style? It's a great little style manual that I swear by, and it's really helped my writing. Portions of it are on-line, but I suggest buying the real book. It's great to have on-hand while you're writing.
you should read hemingway.
Elements of Style... sounds sexy.
Hemingway...mmm.
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