I’ve subscribed to John Warner’s newsletter, “The Biblioracle Recommends,” for some time now. It’s all about reading and writing, a thoughtful source for ideas on how to teach writing and for clear criticism of so-called AI.
He publishes every Sunday and I set aside time to read his essay carefully because he always gives me something to chew on. With that in mind, I checked his latest book More Than Words out of my library.
I was not disappointed.
Warner writes lyrically about writing in ways that will make perfect sense to all writers. For me, reading this book put a name to many things about writing that I knew but had never put into words.
For example, he says:
If we consider writing as the fully embodied practice that it is, words and sentences are not the basics or base units of writing. To start writing, first you need an idea.
Then he adds, after having spent some time thinking about what he just wrote:
It’s not even a full-fledged idea that’s the base unit of writing. It’s something smaller. Let’s call it a “notion.” If an idea is the atom, the true building block of writing matter, consider the notion a subatomic particle, perhaps along with the “inkling,” “sense,” “suspicion,” and “hunch.”
He also quotes from other good writers.
I often feel that I don’t think hard enough about things until I have to write about them.
—Rebecca SolnitA writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
—Thomas Mann