I. Words and express
1.The difference between an active-verb style and a passive-verb style—in? clarity and vigor—is the difference between life and death for a writer.
Zinsser認(rèn)為主動動詞和被動動詞的差異決定了寫作的成敗與否，“l(fā)ife and death”在這里十分有趣
2..Most writers sow adjectives almost unconsiciously into the soil of their prose to make it more lush and pretty, and the sentences become longer and longer as they fill up with stately elms and frisky kittens and hard-bitten detectives and sleepy lagoons.
"sow adjectives into the soil of prose" 指作者在文章中濫用形容詞的情況，十分形象
lush and pretty 譯為“富麗堂皇”
3.Don't? get caught holding a bag of full of abstract nouns. You'll sink to the bottom of the lake and never be seen again.
前一句的a bag of full of abstract nouns和后一句的sink to the bottom of the lake 對應(yīng)，指出大量使用抽象名詞的弊端。
4.A thonier problem is raised by the feminists' annoyance with words that contain "man".
thorny:bristling with perplexities.? (synonymous: hard, difficult)
5. Writing is like a good watch——it should run smoothly and have no extra parts.
十分精彩的比喻，把好的寫作比做鐘表，順暢且沒有冗余。
6.I like to replace a humdrum word with one that has more precision or color. I like to rephrase a drab sentence to give it a more pleasing rhythm or a more graceful musical line.
humdrum:not challenging; dull and lacking excitement.
drab:lacking in liveliness or charm or surprise.
Zinsser用詞的豐富與簡練需要從多個句子的對比來感受，比如"replace"和"rephrase"，“humdrum”和"drab"。
7.This hearty introduction dropped like a stone in our midst, and none of the three lovely ladies said anything, which I thought was the proper response.
dropped like a stone in our midst? 比喻十分有趣，在這里有種“一石激起千層浪”的感覺。
8.Probably you'll never feel entirely comfortable prodding another person for answers he or she may be too shy or too inarticulate to reveal.
prodding? a verbalization that encourages you to attempt something.
synonymous: goad, goading, urging, spur, spuring
9.But more often you'll need to evoke the mood of a whole neighborhood or town to give texture to the story you're telling.
texture? the essential quality of something
give texture to the story 在這里的意思是投入自己的情感，使故事變得有質(zhì)感
10.As a writer you must keep a tight rein on your subjective self and keep an objective eye on the reader.
keep a tight rein? 拉緊韁繩
試譯: “作者必須緊緊地約束主觀自我，并且以客觀的眼光審視讀者?！?/i>
11.In Europe you awake to the clip-clop of horse-drawn wagons along a history-haunted river; you seem to hear the scratch of a quill pen.
clip-clop? the sound of a horse's hoofs hitting on a hard surface.
history-haunted? 有歷史感的，飽經(jīng)歷史滄桑的
12.What we're all looking for——what we want to see pop out of your papers——is individuality.
pop out? 突出、凸顯
13.Memoir isn't the summary of a life; it's a window into a life, very much like? a photograph in its selective composition.
"memoir is a window into a life" window用在這里十分形象，“回憶錄是窺探生活的一扇窗”。
14.If your interview is on tape you become a listener, forever fussing with the machine, running it backward to find the brilliant remark you can never quite find, running it forward, stopping, starting, driving yourself crazy.
stopping, starting, driving yourself crazy? 三個動詞連用很有節(jié)奏感，體現(xiàn)了作者不停的倒帶，為了找到采訪中的一些精彩部分的狀態(tài)
II. Summary
III. Writing exercise
第十章的內(nèi)容主要是給出了一些寫作中的tips，而在第十一章到第十四章中，Zinsser分別指出了采訪、游記與回憶錄三種文體在寫作中的主意事項，簡要概括為“自我”與“細(xì)節(jié)”?！白晕摇奔词侵冈谌魏挝捏w的寫作中，作者都要在文章中展現(xiàn)自己的個人風(fēng)格，即便是像采訪這樣的客觀文體，作者也要在采訪中掌握主動權(quán)，去把握采訪者的語言與采訪稿之間的轉(zhuǎn)換與平衡。“細(xì)節(jié)”則是指想要活靈活現(xiàn)地展現(xiàn)某個人的特色、再現(xiàn)某一地的風(fēng)光、展現(xiàn)自己的某段經(jīng)歷，細(xì)節(jié)的運用往往決定了文章的好壞，出色的細(xì)節(jié)描寫能夠讓文章出類拔萃，避免千人一面、千篇一律。
以下的回憶錄，是我嘗試用Zinsser的方法rewrite之前的一部分舊文。
I had never aware of the summer time of five years ago was so important than I thought. After years, when I recalled old memories, I suddenly found the summer of fifteen years ago was the most eventful time in my lifetime.
I remembered the night you taught me French. I listened you read the paragraph, that charming voice I would never forget, then you asked me to read it. But I didn't. I was so timid and shame about my bad pronunciation. I wish one day I can learn it well, then I can come to you and say, "?a va Monsieur?” Then we discussed about astrology. You asked me the meaning of the zodiac 12th house. I told you it's the reflection of past life’s karmic. When you found someone's planets in your 12th house, that means he or she had hidden their affection of you. However, the thing he never knew was that, when I said someone, I mean myself. That was the unspoken words.
Memories are like dreams, but I believed that these were my most realest dream than ever. But dream is just a dream, one day I must wake up and walk alone in the cold, darkness real life. It is neither lucky nor unfortunate when a sober person woke up and remains the memories of dreams. All these past has a same voice, they said to me—— “The past is your life, but the past is past forever.”
