Image by roverdo via FlickrFor Christmas I received a special edition copy of E.B. White and William Strunk's The Elements of Style, a tiny little book that is both a necessity and a marvel to every writer alive. The volume is, in my opinion, the most perfect for anyone who has ever wanted to rip their sheet of paper in half because they just weren't sure, "which word was best."If you don't already have a copy of The Elements of Style sitting on your desk, I implore you to get one. I believe that I may have actually gotten a project finished if I had gotten mine a long time ago. It was always just one of those things that every writer needs that I always told myself I would eventually get around to buying.
This brings me to my New Year's resolution. I'm going to tell you guys the honest-to-God truth here and say that I have never in my life made a New Year's resolution. No one even thinks about them after February, so I always thought that I would become a better person whenever the mood struck me at any random time during the year. For some inexplicable reason I actually gave a crap this year, and have decided to make sure I get at least an hour of writing in every day. I used to do much, much more, but I'm starting out small and working my way up to the insane level of obsession with my writing that I once had before final exams knocked me off my horse.
Reading through The Elements of Style has given me a level of confidence in my writing that I never thought I would have. Mind you, that's still not much. It's something, though, and definitely enough to make me feel like picking up the pen for more than a few sentences a day again. Professor Strunk reminds me so much of my own Professor that I feel as if I never left English 111 for winter break. I wouldn't be surprised if I found he kept a copy of the volume taped under his desk.
I was also overjoyed to find that Professor Strunk shared my opinion that an apostrophe should be used in names even if the name ends in an s. Most of my English teachers throughout high school have told me that such was a matter of preference, and therefore let me have my way. My Latin teacher, however, claimed that it was written down in stone tablets that "Chris's box" should be written as "Chris' box." Anyone who did not do so knew nothing about English punctuation.
That particular usage of the apostrophe has always been the punctuation equivalent of nails on a chalkboard to me. I have always preferred "Chris's box" to "Chris' box", even though I'm pretty sure both of them are correct.
Good luck with all of your writing related resolutions!
And, you know...the other ones, too.
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