Bleeding Ink

Josh Bernoff’s blog WithoutBullshit.com feeds a cool million readers a year. His message is simple: “reduce, reduce some more, and here’s how.” By judging his readership numbers and the enthusiasm in which his readers receive his content I am confident that reduction is an antidote to the overwhelmingly complex world we meet daily. Josh is the doctor and he’s got the cure. In my first reading of Strunk and White’s canonical Elements of Style, William Strunk’s Rule 17 presented to me a lifetime challenge: omit needless words. Its impact redirected my writing and, in one of those “hey this applies to other things!” moments, it redirected my life. A greater tenet I have yet to discover, for we need not limit omitting to only our words, but to all aspects of our lives. Minimal wins. It’s zen man. I’m just going to leave the expanded Rule 17 here: Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no