23 A Writer’s Decisions

Expressions

the reader is given no chance to squirm away.

squirrel away : to put (something) in a safe or secret place especially so that it can be kept for future use

例  She says the kid's been squirrelling money away like there's no tomorrow.

她说这孩子一直在拼命存钱。

Synonyms:cache, hive up, hoard, lay away, stash

I asked the usual questions and got the usual answers—yellow fever shots, cholera shots, malaria pills, don’t drink the water—and was given a brochure.

shot     the act of putting a liquid into the body by means of a syringe

例   the nurse gave him a flu shot

Synonyms:injection

延伸：like a shot(informal) 立刻；飞快地；毫不犹豫:

a shot across the / sb's 'bows (若不改变就会有某种后果的)警告

a shot in the arm 令人振奋的事情；强心针

shot through with sth 布满,充满,富有(某种颜色、品质或特征):

It’s your opportunity to participate in a once-in-a-lifetime extravaganza

extravaganza  铺张华丽的娱乐表演

■a large, exciting and expensive event or entertainment 

例  a musical /dance extravaganza场面宏大华丽的音乐剧／歌曲汇演／舞蹈盛宴

Thoughts

这本书是有关decisions的，上一章讲的是big decisions：matters of shape, structure, compression, focus and intention

这一章讲的是 little decisions: the hundreds of choices that go into organizing a long article.

写作是线性的和连续的，而逻辑是黏合剂，所以写作在句与句，段与段之间必须保持张力，能吸引读者不断的读下去，而不感到混乱。而这写作的过程就有很多很多的decisions。

作者举例自己的游记文章“The News From Timbuktu”

最难的decisions是如何开头，好的开头能引起读者的兴趣，读者才有可能读完全文。

然后就是不断的各种承接上一句，上一段，还有选择词句和材料的decisions。作者举例很详细，不多说了。

In the morning I noticed paw prints in the sand next to my blanket. Mohammed Ali said that a jackal had come by to clean up the leftovers from our dinner—of which, as I recalled the chicken, there must have been quite a few. But I didn’t hear a thing. I was too busy dreaming that I was Lawrence of Arabia.

上面是作者游记的结尾，特别好，一直让我回味。

作者说写文章的一个重要decisions是在何处结尾。特别同意！一个好的结尾能让读者回味无穷，深刻印在脑海中。如果结尾太拖沓或太草草收尾，都可能毁了整篇文章给人的感受。

作者最后说，If a subject interests you, go after it. It’s not going to come looking for you.

毕竟好题材是可遇不可求的，如果连自己感兴趣的材料都不抓住，错过了，那就太悲剧了。

所以，遇到自己想写的，就开心的开始写吧！

Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it.