Since I blog about writing, I’m sharing my 5 favorite books on the subject.

My picks shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s followed this blog on a regular basis. I’ve written about most of them or at least mentioned them in passing. Here they are again, along with a couple reasons why they mean so much to me:

1. On Writing Well, William Zinsser. Despite its age, On Writing Well is still relevant as a reference for what to do and what to avoid in many nonfiction forms, including newspaper and magazine articles, travel, sports and humor writing, criticism, memoir – even memos, newsletters and yes, blog posts. His advice to write tight and bright is especially relevant in a world of shrinking word counts and online readers who can’t be bothered to scroll past a story’s opening screen.

2. AP Stylebook, Associated Press. Today, you can choose between the spiral-bound print version, the online version or the smartphone app. Regardless of form, this is still the go-to book for questions of usage for newspaper-style journalism. Of all my favorites, this is the one I consult the most.

3. The Art and Craft of Feature Writing, William E. Blundell. I was just talking with another writer about this book last week. It’s a classic and something I’ve hung onto for years. Blundell based the book on the in-house writing classes he conducted while on staff at the Wall Street Journal, which IMHO was and is one of the best-written and edited publications in the country. The chapter “Handling Key Story Elements” one of the best, discussing topics such as leads, quotes, paraphrasing and numbers. My writer friend found a used copy online for $1.

4. The Elements of Style, William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. Good old Strunk and White. The copy on my office bookshelf has survived since college. It’s to grammar and usage what the AP Stylebook is to spelling, punctuation and capitalization.

5. The Elements of Editing, Arthur Plotnik. There are lots of books on writing, not so many on editing. This one might not rise to the level of a Strunk and White, but it comes pretty close. If you get it, bypass dated references to typesetting and focus on chapters covering concepts that never go out of style: processing manuscripts, line editing and working with writers.

If you’re a WordCount regular, you know I’m a fan of On Writing Well, the classic guide to good writing from William Zinsser first published in 1976 and updated many times since. For Christmas, I treated myself to Zinsser’s latest book, Writing Places: The Life Journey of a Writer and Teacher, and wasn’t disappointed. The book is an autobiography told through essays on the spaces and places Zinsser set his writing implement of choice (Underwood typewriter, IBM PC, etc.) over the years. The book covers Zinsser’s stints as a staff writer at the now defunct New York Herald Tribune, freelancing from various quirky New York offices and teaching and living at Yale. Several of these essays I’d previously read in The New Yorker, including the book’s brief opening chapter, in which Zinsser recounts how he came to rent office space from Valley of the Dolls publisher Bernard Geis – fire pole and all. As a fellow long-time independent writer I could related to the chapter entitled “The Loneliness of the Freelance Writer.” A sample:

I learned very early that the phone doesn’t ring anywhere near as often as it should. I also learned that editors move at a pace little short of cardiac arrest. Secure in their own steady income, they are thoughtless about the professional and financial and emotional needs of their unsalaried writers. I had entered the land of the three-month response and the unreturned phone call and the check that wasn’t in the mail.

Ain’t it the truth.

By the way, if you’re a Zinsser fan, you’ll be as excited as I was to discover that he writes this weekly blog, at The American Scholar.

Here are my other recommended readings for writers for this week:

Writing

Roy Wenzl on Abuse Narratives and Victims’ Voices: ‘With a story like this, you just need to say what happened.’ (Nieman Storyboard) Wenzl, an award-winning reporter for The Wichita Eagle, discusses how he wrote “Promise Not to Tell,” a horrifying story of familial sex abuse.

• Finding Your Unique Blogging Voice (Jody Hedlund)
• Honing your mad blogging skillz (The Bookshelf Muse)

Media industry

Top 10 Media Stories of 2010: WikiLeaks, Facebook, iPad Mania (PBS Mediashift) – Good list, one that MediaShift executive editor Mark Glaser compiled using EtherPad, a crowdsourcing tool that let him write it on a public web page “while people chatted in real time and made their own comments and changes.” Interesting concept – and one I might try here next year.

• If an App is Your Content Strategy You’re Doomed (Gigaom)
• 5 Predictions for the Public Relations Industry in 2011 (Mashable) Because it’s always good to know what they’re thinking on the other side of the fence.
• Tablet-Only, Mobile-First: News Orgs Native to New Platforms Coming Soon (Neiman Journalism Lab)

Tech tools for writers

The Good, Bad and Ugly of Media iPad Apps (Gigaom) – As the proud new owner of an iPad (apparently Santa read my wish list), I’m particularly interested in what apps are out there, something I’ll be writing about more here in January.

I grabbed it off my bookshelf to share at a writing class I taught at the recent Digital Journalism Camp in Portland – then took it with me on vacation.

I own the book’s fifth edition, which came out in 1994. The only things about it that’s dated is a discussion of the advantage of writing on a computer v. in longhand and a few references to long-dead writers you may or may not have ever read (E.B. White yes, S.J. Perelman, no). The latest 30th anniversary edition, the seventh overall, came out in 2006.

Despite its age, On Writing Well is still relevant as a reference for what to do and what to avoid in many forms of nonfiction: newspaper and magazine articles, travel, sports and humor writing, criticism, memoir – even memos, newsletters and emails you may need to produce for work.

Zinsser’s advice to write tight and bright is especially relevant in a world of shrinking word counts and Internet readers who can’t be bothered to scroll past a story’s opening screen.

If you don’t already have this on your bookshelf, get a copy. Until then, here’s some of my favorite Zinsser advice:

On words – Read your articles out loud to see how they flow. Don’t use words you wouldn’t use in the course of normal conversation. Avoid jargon and cliches. Less is more. Active v. passive.

On the writing process. Writing is hard, even for the pros, the more you do it, the (slightly) easier it gets. Writing is rewriting. Being a writer isn’t about being a certain type of person, it’s about doing the work.

On style – Style is sounding like you on the page, not like anyone else. Zinsser writes:

Sell yourself, and your subject will exert its own appeal. Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Proceed with confidence, generating it by willpower. Writing is an act of ego, and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.

On interviews – Write questions out beforehand. Use some form of shorthand to take notes even if you’re recording. Get more material than you think you’ll need. Pay attention to detail. I didn’t realize how much of this I’d absorbed until I read his chapter on interviews then looked at the notes I’d made for that Digital Journalism Camp class on conducting interviews – his influence is obvious.

On leads and endings – If the first line of your story doesn’t grab readers, they’ll never read the second. Hook them with the lead and keep the good stuff coming. Even when you’re writing nonfiction, writing has to be entertaining for people to stick around. Pay attention to how you finish things. Don’t just re-state the lead – circle back to an opening anecdote, close with a bang-up quote, or simply finish telling the story.

On tackling science, technology and other complex subjects – Make sure you understand how what you’re writing about works or you’ll never be able to explain it to readers. Avoid jargon. Include people to keep things real.

On editors – Good ones can make decent stories better, and decent writers better too. Bad ones drive writers crazy, by changing style, voice, content, organization, and generally treating them “like hired help.”

Some of his closing words are a freelance writer’s anthem:

…The purposes that writers serve must be their own. What you write is yours and nobody else’s. Take your talent as far as you can and guard it with your life. Only you know how far that is: no editor knows. Writing well means believing in your writing and believing in yourself, taking risks, daring to be different, pushing yourself to excel. You will write only as well as you make yourself write.