On Well Writing-chapter 21

Enjoyment, Fear, Confidence

WORDS

1.Credential

I had no credentials; any of the men I approached with my notebook—managers, coaches, players, umpires, scouts—could have asked, “What else have you written about baseball?” But nobody did.They didn’t ask because I had another kind of credential: sincerity.

A skill,experiences that make a person suitable for the job.证明（能胜任工作的）

Eg.My experience as a manager is my strongest credential.

— usually plural

What are your credentials? [=qualifications]

仿写：Do you have any credentials for this job?

Syn:qualification,certificate

2.Insouciance

/ınˈsuːsijəns/ noun [ noncount ]

I liked the insouciance that presented on the same page two features so different in gravity.

Positive:放松，不被打扰a relaxing state and not be bothered by others ~He feels childlike insouciance when he watches TV.

Negative:漠不关心indifferent,not caring~The young voters are always accused by treating the right to vote with insouciance.

3.Audacity

He said, “It takes audacity and exuberance (旺盛的精力）and gaiety（欢乐，生机）, and the most important one is audacity.”

Audacious(someone is audacious takes risks in order to achieve something)behavior

敢于冒险的；大胆的；ADJ

an audacious plan to win the presidency.

为当选总统而制订的大胆计划

替换：bold

仿写：His audacity to quit his job to open a restaurant jolts a lot of people.

4.party line

‘There’s no party line: good advice for writers. You can be your own party line.
Policy or practice of a party.

引申为既定的，一尘不变的路线

Eg. “Practice your party line so that you don’t ramble, because rambling tends to get us in trouble,” Crawford says.

仿写：He broke the party line and becomes a cook.

5.Rapport

I need to feel a certain rapport with the person I’ll be writing about. The Peterson assignment wasn’t one that I originated;

If two people or two groups have a rapport,they have good relationships and can understand each other.

Eg.He said he wanted 'to establish a rapport with the Indian people'...

他说他想“同印度人民建立友好关系”。

The success depends on good rapport between interviewer and interviewee...

成功取决于采访者与被采访者之间的良好沟通。

仿写：A success interview depend on good rapport between the interviewer and the respondents.

OTHER EXPRESSIONS

无价之宝：priceless attribute

I brought with me my belief that a sense of enjoyment is a priceless attribute for a writer or for a publication, and I was now in the same room with the men and women who had first put that idea in my head.

愉快高兴：mirthful

with a mirthful confidence in their opinions.

REFLECTION

  In previous chapters,Zinsser says that writing as a craft is a drudge.However,in this chapter,He says that we should savor it when we’re writing.We should turn on the switch to cheer ourselves up like dancers.When we find it fun, someone will find it fun too,no matter who find it bored.We can only interest others when we amuse outselves.

  But the enjoyment can be damaged by the fear of writing.Why is that?Because we regard writing as a task.When we were young,we were always be given the stupid themes that we don’t intersted at all.So we were so distressed to write.Secondly,we are afraid that we might be unable to bring off the assignment.

  How can we fight the fear?Be confident.We can write about the subjects that interest us and that we care about.Sometimes,the assignment are not as narrow as we think.We should broaden the story with strength.

I also had bagged a rare bird of my own, and when I put Peterson away in a drawer with my other collected specimens, I thought: that was interesting.

Zinsser的这个结尾太精彩了。幽默又精准。Peterson 研究鸟类，他有许许多多的抽屉来存放他的标本。而对于Zinsser这个写作者来说，Peterson就是他的“标本”，是他众多研究对象中的一个。Peterson研究鸟类和Zimsser研究写作一样，都是craft。