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Sean McManus's Blog
Trust me on the semicolon
10 April 2007
When I have time, I'll write a list of my favourite writing books and Roy Peter Clarke's Writing Tools will crown it. There are plenty of books for new writers, but this one helps writers with experience to develop their style. Some of the ideas are simple, but take on new life in this book thanks to the inspiring examples from journalism and fiction. Not all the writing is to my taste, but it's nearly all impressive.Today, I discovered 'Writing Tools: The musical', based loosely on Baz Luhrmann's Sunscreen single of 1999 (download details on right of linked page, warning: lyrics spoilers in the main content).
It goes a bit wacky at the end and some clever ideas are skipped over in the interests of brevity. But as an aide-memoire for a much-loved book, and an example of how you can make a writing tutorial fun, I love it. It made me laugh a couple of times too, although that might be because I know both the book and the single it parodies. If you have any interest in writing, you owe it to yourself to gamble six minutes on it today.
Labels: book review, music, writing
