Good Sentences

What is a good sentence? How do we know one when we see one? What can we learn from good sentences? Can we become better readers and writers by stopping occasionally to notice sentences and to examine them? We address these questions here by examining sentences from all types of sources.

It has been more than a long time since I posted anything on this blog. Perhaps today is the day to end that streak of inactivity and to return to the purpose which moved me to crate the blog in the first place.

So I include here an excerpt from My Staggerford Journal, written by Jon Hassler and published by Ballantine Books in 1999. The book is a journal that Hassler kept during a sabbatical that he took to write his first novel, Staggerford. In the journal entry below he states his reasons for writing. Perhaps his reasons relate more than tangentially to those behind posts on blogs. Whatever the case, it is good to recognize nicely written paragraphs and nicely expressed ideas when we encounter them.

Excerpt

SEPTEMBER 17  I got word last Saturday that the publisher Frederick Warne will publish Four Miles to Pinecone. I have sold, ten days apart, two novels. It's nothing short of a miracle. Four Miles to Pinecone is a boy's adventure story. Warne will pay me half of what Atheneum is paying me. I know nothing about the mar­ket for children's books, except that libraries make up 80 percent of it. I don't know if there are enough li­braries in the world to earn me over $1,500. But to be read is what I've been striving for. How many times have I said to myself: It is neither fame nor fortune that I seek in linking words together on paper, it is to be read. It is to extend my voice out beyond the range of my voice. It is to have six people in Missouri and four in Idaho see, for a little while, the world the way I see it. For years I have been practicing to be good enough to deserve their attention, and now I will come to the attention of those six people in Missouri and those four in Idaho, and I have my reward. The money is nice. It may buy me time off from teaching. But it is nothing compared to the thought of being read. (p. 76)

What are your thoughts about being read? If you would like to read more of Jon Hassler's thoughts, the complete reference follows.

Source: Hassler, J. (1999). The Staggerford journal. New York: Ballantine Books.

posted by: sentenceguy at 13:47 | link | comments |