Month: September 2014

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: Read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.”

I have nothing to say more. Fortunately, I love to read and I would love to write. So I just could enjoy it. But, I try to read a lot more. To achieve this, one thing I do is keep the record about what I read. As for writing, I am trying to write this blog, 500 words for a post.

“I suggest a thousand words a day, and because I’m feeling magnanimous, I’ll also suggest that you can take one day a week off, at least to begin with. No more; you’ll lose the urgency and immediacy of you story if you do.”

This suggestion would help a lot of writers. I am writing 1000 words. I am just writing something not story just for me. I think it is important to build the habit of writing at first, and then I will care more about quality of writing.

“Description is what makes the reader a sensory participant in the story. Good description is learned skill, one of the prime reasons why you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. It’s not just a question of how-to, you see; it’s also a question of how much to. Reading will help you answer how much, and only reams of writing will help you with the how. You can learn only by doing.”

So then, good description is learned skill. For now, I could just enjoy writing and reading. But, one thing I have to promise is, even though I feel I have nothing to write and I am afraid of making mistake, I will keep write. I will read a lot, write a lot and never stop writing. I don’t know but I think I can because I am enjoying writing.

“The key to good description begins with clear seeing and ends with clear writing.”

I understand this. When I was writing paper, I could not write well if I don’t have clear picture of physics. We have to have clear ideas what to write and then you have to figure out how we can explain it to readers. If we are excited what to say,  we would care how we can make people understand.

“Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, O.K.? Getting happy.”

 Remember. Why are you writing? I am writing for fun and for me.

 Some of this book – perhaps too much – has been about how I learned to do it. Much of it has been about how you can do it better. The rest of it – and perhaps the best of it – is ha permission slip; you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will. Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.

If writing is hobby, that is good, you don’t spend money on that. I will drink as much as I can!!

On writing by Steven King, since I am not native English speaker, I am worse than bad write he mentioned. Even though, I could learn a lot from this book. I am a scientist. I have to be a good writer enough to describe the truth we found to the other scientist and sometime to general people. I will quote sentences from Steven King, which has encouraged me to write more and better.

 “When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story’, “When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story” (This is actually from Gould who is New England humorist or novelist)

When I finish my draft, I usually leave it at least for a day, and then I revise what I write. My first draft usually has a lot of mistakes that I have to avoid. I can find them with fresh eyes when I read next day. And more important, it usually has a lot of unnecessary words and sentences because I am ashamed of writing too little.

 “If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can’t or won’t, it’s time for you to close the book and do something else. Wash the car, maybe.”

I am writing. I need to be serious. No, I want to be serious. I want to be better writer because I like it. I do make mistakes and but I will improve. I prefer quantity to quality for now. Only I can do now is keep writing as seriously as I could be.

“Common tools go on top. The commonest of all, the bread of writing, is vocabulary. – – It ain’t how much you’ve got, honey, it’s how you use it.”  

 “Put you vocabulary on the top shelf of your toolbox, and don’t make any conscious effort to improve it. (You will be doing that as you read, of course … but that comes later.) One of the really bad things you can do to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones.

When I was a student, beginner in English, I wanted to improve my vocabulary as many as I could. And, I was trying to use difficult words or phrase to impress someone. Yes, I was immature. We don’t need dress up by using the vocabulary we barely know. We just need simple sentences to express our ideas. For vocabulary, I also believe reading would help to improve a lot, not at once, but surely that would happen sometime.

“The subject is just letting it happen; you should avoid the passive tense.”

Mr. William Strunk said so in “the element of style”, and also Mr. William Zinssern wrote in “On writing”. They said the same thing. Think about it. If you have to read passive tense, sometime you need to read back. To let reader’s eyes move forward.

This is not end of book review, I will keep write this review later.

This book was written in 1975 in Japanese by Kenichi Ohame. The American version of this book was published in 1982. He was a chairman of the McKinsey & Company in Japan. He holds a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from MIT. Since I am a scientist too, the way of his thinking are very comfortable for me. I happened to find this book in the used book store in Japan. Guess how much? Just one dollar!! While I was excited to buy, I was wondering what Japanese business men are reading now. What are they doing, while leaving this book at used book store???? They must have the Kindle version of this book, mustn’t they? Otherwise, we will fall “Lost 3 decades”

He was called Mr. Strategy. Even the strongest chess in the world Gary Kasparov referred this book. Anyway, this book consists from three parts, which are the art of strategy thinking, building successful strategy, and modern strategy reality. Even though he used Japanese companies as examples, you can easily adapt this idea. Why not trying?

I am writing this for Japanese business men. Japanese companies have to be innovative companies in this 21th century. I can tolerate if you can’t agree with this approach. That is fine. As Mortimer J. Adler or Charles Van Doren (The author of “How to read a book”) said, either way that you agree or you disagree with the book, you need to understand what exactly the author claims. But, if you don’t read this, you should not be a manager at top level company. Please don’t be.

If you read this 20-25 years old: You are excellent. This book is a little bit earlier for you, but you can try to apply this idea in you dearly life. When you start your work seriously, let’s apply this idea.

25- 30 years old: You are very good. You would be able to a manager in top-leveled company somewhere in the world. Since you are still young, you can watch who will win, who lose by looking up your bosses. You can use this idea to build your hypotheses, and test again and again. You can still have time to fail. And then, you have to be careful enough not to waste your time. You have to be most knowledgeable person about what you do in your company until you become 30. Know yourself, invest efficiently, and win.

31 years old: You are almost late, but there is still hope. You might just need to only adjust what you have done.

32 years old: I want to say you are late but you can do some. But, I want to point this out.  Dr. Ohmae wrote this book when he was 32 years old, you are reading now. Do you understand what I mean?

33-34 years old: I don’t know what to say.

If you read this book when you are older than 35 years old, you will never be a manager at top-level company.

This book was written 40 years ago. Just an idea in 20^th century, you are surviving 21th century, you need to acquire these kind of skills until you turn 30, and otherwise you can’t be an effective executive because the others can. Since I am leaving Japan, I can give you this book and explain it to you if you want. Please let me know.