using original metaphor

I recently stumbled across a website devoted to the practice of writing journalism which features an excellent series of articles called 50 Writing Tools, authored by someone named Roy Peter Clark. Writing Tool #8, called Seek Original Images, discusses the use of clichés and "first-level creativity." That's a great phrase, and this excerpt from the article containing some George Orwell illustrates the point perfectly:

"Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print," writes George Orwell. He argues that using cliches is a substitute for thinking, a form of automatic writing: "Prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house." Orwell's last phrase is a fresh image, a model of  originality.

After reading this article, I remembered reading an essay years ago by Orwell about the state of English writing, so I googled him and found it right away. It's called Politics and the English Language, and it's worth reading if you're interested in this sort of thing. Written in 1946, the essay still rings completely true today. And after reading through my latest draft of my short story with a more critical eye, I discovered at least a half-dozen worn-out phrases that were completely lacking in originality. So revise them I shall!

today's reading on economics

As usual, my economic guru aldoushuxley (how lucky to have gotten that username) has dropped another great article on us. And as usual, the discussion generated is worth reading (save my own inconsequential remarks). Often his blog scares me a little and makes me want to go hide in a cabin in the woods for awhile. But that's okay too; I don't mind getting in touch with my primitive side sometimes.

From his blog entry on Lenin's theory on how to destroy capitalism:

By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. [...] Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become 'profiteers,' who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat.

(no subject)

From monotony, a personality test based on how you draw a pig.

My test results are here. Highly scientific, no doubt. But there was no rating given on the cuteness of my pig:

Bush Begins Hunger Strike To Protest Human-Rights Abuses In Nepal

From the full article text:

"I can no longer stand idly by while the gentle, peace-loving Nepalese people are made to suffer," said Bush, a longtime admirer of Nepalese culture. "This hunger strike will send a strong message to the government of Nepal and the insurgent Maoist rebels that their suppression of freedom and subjugation of the innocent is not going unnoticed."