WHERE I LEARNED WORDS: Was just randomly thinking about where I learned various words–I still remember the first time I ran across “baobab” (The Little Prince, also home of “toper”) and “jejune” (uh, the book version of Labyrinth–David Bowie’s character is described as “jaded with jejune joys.” Yes, I still remember that; some things are too awful to forget). I’m pretty sure the “Dilsey” section of The Sound and the Fury (ugh) is where I got “deliquescing,” and “coruscant” is from a Christopher Fry play, probably “The Lady’s Not for Burning.” I got a bunch from Ulysses, but that’s to be expected. “Chrysoprase” is from The Picture of Dorian Gray, and “the lee of the stone” is of course from Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Diana Wynne Jones’s Dogsbody contributed “luminary,” “denizen,” and a bunch more I forget–maybe even “ozone.” The Last Unicorn (still one of my favorite books) contributed “gelid,” “nunist,” and more. “Automat” is a gift of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

This list of course confims my belief that the best way to learn to write is to read; reading is great for vocabulary, but perhaps even more useful because it imparts an ear for grammar. I don’t know most of the rules of grammar–when to use “which” as vs. “that,” for an example that I consistently get wrong (or is it “which I consistently get wrong”??)–but I can usually tell what “sounds right.” I didn’t need writing books to teach me that you should vary the length and complexity of your sentences, since I already had an inarticulate understanding that a series of long clause-looped sentences would confuse readers. I had a similarly inarticulate sense that the ending of a passage should be succinct and memorable. Many college composition classes try to teach writing alone, rather than building on a base of reading; this strikes me as a recipe for frustrated and bored students who can neither read with joy nor write with clarity.