Another essay about weasel words and doublespeak by William Lutz also garnered a sticky tab bookmark.And then yesterday, I got cornered by Donald Murray's Writing is Rewriting. So lucid, so explanatory, so insightful.thesis statement
Don, I just want to say that it was nice getting your letters when I was up in Milwaukee. You were a kind soul & you live forever in people's hearts & minds...I'm glad that I met you while I was a student at UNH. Not very many people can say that they knew a person like you...My dad just died so maybe you both are talking up in Heaven. Rest in Peace...See you later...
After devouring Writing to Deadline, I discovered that Donald Murray had passed away. A retiree now in Florida, I returned to writing after a 30 year hiatus and was inspired by his advice and his feel for the human heart. Though late, my sympthany goes to his family and his colleagues and his community-at-large. What a gifted and gentle man.
Please accept my deepest sympathies.
I had bought "About Language: A Reader for Writers" about a year ago, and dipped into on occasion. Other commitments kept me not between the pages until just this week. One selection by Richard Rodriguez was my second look at it, having previewed it in his book at Amazon. Another essay about weasel words and doublespeak by William Lutz also garnered a sticky tab bookmark.And then yesterday, I got cornered by Donald Murray's Writing is Rewriting. So lucid, so explanatory, so insightful.
Then I went online to find out more about Mr. Murray, only to find out that this titan of the written word had passed on so recently.
I do hope one day to read more of his books and his advice on writing, "a profound form of play".
(I might add that writing is not only a form of play, but a play of infinitely varied forms.)
In the same essay, he had many memorable lines, but I will put only this one: "... as someone who had played the games of football and hockey, the game of jumping out of airplanes, the terrible "game of war", I find rewriting the most exciting game of all."