Amitava Kumar's Every Day I Write the Book is for academic writers what Annie Dillard's The Writing Life and Stephen King's On Writing are for creative writers. Alongside Kumar's interviews with an array of scholars whose distinct writing offers inspiring examples for students and academics alike, the book's pages are full of practical advice about everything from how to write criticism to making use of a kitchen timer. Communication, engagement, honesty: these are the aims and sources of good writing. Storytelling, attention to organization, solid work habits: these are its tools. Kumar's own voice is present in his essays about the writing process and in his perceptive and witty observations on the academic world. A writing manual as well as a manifesto, Every Day I Write the Book will interest and guide aspiring writers everywhere.
- Cover
- Contents
- Introduction. The 90-Day Book
- Part I. Self-Help
- Misery
- Good Sentences
- Read No Secondary Literature
- Read Junk
- Failure
- Running
- Sleep
- Kitchen Timer
- Self-Help
- Part II. Writing a Book: A Brief History
- Rules of Writing
- In Memory of
- Out of Place
- Eyes on the Ground
- The End of the Line
- Creative Criticism
- How to Throw Your Body
- I’m Feeling Myself
- Creative Writing
- Part III. Credos
- Declarations of Independence
- In Praise of Nonfiction
- There Is No Single Way
- How Proust Can Ruin Your Life
- Reality Hunger
- Depend on Your Dumbness
- Blackness (Unmitigated)
- Rage on the Page
- On Training
- Part IV. Form
- Light Years
- Neither/Nor
- Criticism by Other Means
- Paranoid Theory
- Erotic Style
- I Blame the Topic Sentence
- The Sound and the Fury
- In Defense of the Fragment
- Kids
- Part V. Academic Interest
- Diana Studies
- Examined Life
- Occupy Writing
- Academic Sentence
- Dissertation Blah
- Your Job Is to Know a Lot
- Terminology
- Anti-Anti Jargon
- Monograph
- Part VI. Style
- But Life
- Sugared Violets
- Voice
- Wikileaks Manual of Style
- Detecting Style
- Strunk and White
- A Clean English Sentence
- Trade
- Recommendation Letter
- Part VII. Exercises
- Bad Writing
- Prompt
- Post-Its
- Revising
- Editing
- Performing It
- Rituals
- For Graduate Students
- Not Writing
- Part VIII. The Groves of Academe
- Academe
- Stoner
- Common Sense
- Titles
- Campus Criticism
- Farther Away
- Accountability
- Tenure Files
- Journals
- Part IX. Materials
- Photographs, etc
- “Who’s Got the Address?” (a Collaboration with Teju Cole)
- Acknowledgments
- Appendix A. Ten Rules of Writing
- Appendix B. PEN Ten Interview
- Notes
- Index
Text
Audio
Adobe DRM
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