If you had 53 minutes +

Introduction

If you do have 53 minutes and would like to learn more about writing then I recommend this Steven Pinker video.

The + in the title of the post refers to 30 minutes of questions and answers following Steven’s talk.

Classic Style

Steven discusses Francis-Noël Thomas and Mark Turner’s guide to writing classic prose. Their book, Clear and simple as the truth, has appeared in two editions (1994 and 2011).
The Princeton University Press home page for the 2011 edition observes:

In classic style, the motive is truth, the purpose is presentation, the reader and writer are intellectual equals, and the occasion is informal. This general style of presentation is at home everywhere, from business memos to personal letters and from magazine articles to student essays. Everyone talks about style, but no one explains it. The authors of this book do; and in doing so, they provoke the reader to consider style, not as an elegant accessory of effective prose, but as its very heart.

83 Minutes and Counting

Steven, Francis and Mark have set me off on a new journey. My guides to this point have been Elliot Eisner, Howard Becker , Wolfgang Iser and John van Maanen.
It is a journey that will be informed by and seeking the craft of writing.