The Only Book About Writing You’ll Ever Need

I’ve read it 10 times

Six years ago, I sort of forgot how to write. I’d been publishing on the internet for a little over a year — that first, embarrassing, thrilling, bringing-a-laptop-to-parties year (I’m fun at parties) — and I’d run out of things to say. What used to be casual, fast, easy breezy bloggy beautiful, had become… slightly boring. Slow. I’d have an idea, stare at my laptop for an hour, Command-Tab over to Gmail, and then walk four blocks to buy an overpriced panini.

So, I did what I always do: I walked into a bookstore feeling vaguely depressed, and left with something to read.

I know you just want the name of the book, so here you go: Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg. It’s sort of a weird book, to be honest. It contains no paragraphs, just sentences stacked on top of each other in austere columns. (The whole thing sort of reads like a poem.) And yes, it’s about the mechanics of putting words together, but it’s also about other things: thinking, noticing, mapping the mess inside your head. Also, trusting yourself — something I have a difficult time doing.

There’s a lot of writing advice out there: books, articles, quotes from dead people. Most of it isn’t actually about writing. It’s about scheduling (wake up at six!), preparing to write…