一 词（组）

1. tag along

Now I’m saying you must write for yourself and not be gnawed by worry over whether the reader is tagging along.

例句：

It was my mom buying me comics when I was really little and then me tagging along with her to the local drugstore.

I wonder what it was like for him, having a little sister tagging along.（Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye(1988)）

2. gnaw

Now I’m saying you must write for yourself and not be gnawed by worry over whether the reader is tagging along.

gnaw: to be a source of annoyance, worry, or vexation to （同义词：harass, plague）

例句：

her brain was gnawed by savage and distorted thoughts — James Boyd

My stomach roiled as uncertainty gnawed at my apathy-fueled courage.（Shaun David Hutchinson, We Are the Ants(2016)）

3. ground（v.）

But at least your sentences will be grounded in solid principles, and your chances of losing the reader will be smaller.

(usually be gounded in) give (something abstract) a firm theoretical or practical basis

例句：

the study of history must be gounded in a thorough knowledge of the past

The brilliant synthesis was grounded in his own practical experience.

4. tip-off, garrulous

Other old writers ramble and repeat themselves; their style is the tip-off that they have turned into garrulous bores.

其他的年长的作家喋喋不休地重复，他们的风格是暗示，不直接说明。结果最后变成了啰嗦的无聊之物。

garrulous: excessively talkative, especially on trivial matters 喋喋不休的

例句：

I feel in a communicative, garrulous mood tonight, and it's no use mincing words.（Hocking, Joseph, The Everlasting Arms(2012)）

The normally garrulous Ma has also said little publicly about his early life.（Washington Post(Nov 23, 2014)）（人马云爸爸哪里话多啦）

tip-off: an indication, hint, or warning of an otherwise unknown fact, development, or move （同义词：tip, giveaway）提示，暗示，密报

例句：

When police acting on a tip-off tried to stop the driver at a checkpoint, he drove on and was shot and injured.

Mendax left home at seventeen because he had received a tip-off about an impending raid.（Dreyfus, Suelette, Underground(2010)）

5. crotchet

Let’s look at a few writers to see the pleasure with which they put on paper their passions and their crotchets, not caring whether the reader shares them or not.

crotchet: an out-of-the-ordinary attitude or habit : an opinion usually of little ultimate importance and often serving to mark off a person from others （同义词：whim, peculiarity）怪癖，特性

例句：

crotchets, though plentiful, had not yet snatched away the reins of his judgment — Marvin Lowenthal

6. the height of sth

written by E. B. White in 1944, at the height of World War II

the time when a situation or event is strongest or most full of activity 最严重、巅峰时期（这里是指写于二战形式最严峻时期）

例句：

At the height of the violence, neighbour was killing neighbour.

7. deify

The war has deified her and she is the darling of the home front, feted at conference tables, praised in every smoking car, her girlish ways and curious habits the topic of many an excited husbandryman to whom yesterday she was a stranger without honor or allure.

Or take a writer who is almost White’s opposite in terms of style, who relishes the opulent word for its opulence and doesn’t deify the simple sentence.

deify:to glorify or exalt as of supreme worth or excellence

Anytime we make someone seem so great, so powerful, so wonderful, and so amazing that it can't possibly be true, we're deifying them. It's something we just can't help doing when we respect or love someone a lot.

例句：

Man’s subliminal urge to destroy what he could neither subdue nor deify.（Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things(1997)）

8. vaudeville:（20世纪初流行于美国的）杂耍表演，混合歌舞表演

二 摘抄

I’m talking about two different issues. One is craft, the other is attitude. The first is a question of mastering a precise skill. The second is a question of how you use that skill to express your personality.

craft：写作技巧，不让读者因为语言问题读不下去，属于technical的范畴。可以通过训练加强。

attitude：写作态度，决定了作品能否吸引读者的兴趣，属于creative的范畴。取决于作者有多真情流露。

三 总结

Chapter 3: A good writing is both a well-skilled flow of words and also an authentic portrait of writers themselves.

Chapter 4: A good writing should better be originally weaved with words that are not only sensible but also musically pleasant.