HOW TO WRITE is a concentration of GS thinking about words, sentences, paragraphs, grammar and narrative. There is no better way of understanding it than by trying it yourself. If you sit down and copy out sentences that you like you can really begin to feel the woman, the thought and the feelings that go into her work. It is a spontaneous creation of writing thinking and feeling all done at the same time. A remarkable achievement that leaves you with a feeling of gratitude that there always have been and hopefully always will be a few dedicated and serious artists who no matter what difficulties there are will somehow manage to be creative and vitally productive all their lives. They do it and they are examples for those who follow.

Thanks GS.

My writing is clear as mud, but mud settles and clear streams run on and disappear . . . (EA 123)

Mr. Owen Young made a mistake, he said the only thing he wished his son to have was the power of clearly expressing his ideas. Not at all. It is not clarity that is desirable but force.

Clarity is of no importance because nobody listens and nobody knows what you mean no matter what you mean, nor how clearly you mean what you mean. But if you have vitality enough of knowing enough of what you mean, somebody and sometime and sometimes a great many will have to realize that you know what you mean and so they will agree that you mean what you know, what you know you mean, which is as near as anybody can come to understanding anyone. (HJ, FIA 127)

PATRICIA MEYEROWITZ

New York City

References Used in the Introduction (in the sequence in which they are quoted)

LIA LECTURES IN AMERICA (1934)
Beacon Press, Boston, 1957
EA EVERYBODY’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1936)
Vintage, New York, 1973
WAM WHAT ARE MASTER-PIECES (1922-36)
Conference Press, Los Angeles, 1940
GMMA The Gradual Making of the Making of Americans (1934)
GCA Genuine Creative Ability (1930)
PRIMER A PRIMER FOR THE GRADUAL UNDERSTANDING OF GERTRUDE STEIN
Ed. Robert Bartlett Haas
Black Sparrow Press, Los Angeles, 1971
CAE Composition As Explanation (1926)
PENG. GERTRUDE STEIN: WRITINGS AND LECTURES 1909-1945
Ed. Patricia Meyerowitz
Penguin Books, Inc., Baltimore, 1971
TI A Transatlantic Interview (1946)
WIEL What Is English Literature (1934)
PAG Poetry and Grammar (1934)
HTW HOW TO WRITE (1927-31)
Plain Edition, Paris, 1931
HJ Henry James (c. 1932)
FIA FOUR IN AMERICA (1932-3)
Yale University Press, New Haven, 1947

Table of Contents


Title Page
Copyright Page
PREFACE TO THE DOVER EDITION
INTRODUCTION TO THE DOVER EDITION
SAVING THE SENTENCE
SENTENCES AND PARAGRAPHS
ARTHUR A GRAMMAR
A GRAMMARIAN
SENTENCES
REGULAR REGULARLY IN NARRATIVE
FINALLY GEORGE A VOCABULARY OF THINKING
FORENSICS

SAVING THE SENTENCE

Qu’est-ce que c’est cette comédie d’un chien. Que le dit train est bien celui qui doit les conduire a leur destination. Manifestement éveillé.

 

When he will see

When he will see

When he will see the land of liberty.

The scene changes it is a stone high up against with a hill and there is and above where they will have time. Not higher up below is a ruin which is a castle and there will be a color above it. Painting now after its great moment must come back to be a minor art.

Will be welcome.

We will be welcome.

Should be put upon a hill. Across which it is placed upon different hills. Lower hills have a mark they mean.

When a dog is no longer a lap dog there is a temporary inattention. Then they will seem to be sent together. It is a noise not of tapestry but of wood which when lighted in three logs makes a fire.

It makes it do that they do cry when in an assistance.

What is a sentence. A sentence is a part of a speech.

A speech. They knew that beside beside is colored like a word beside why there they went. That is a speech. Anybody will listen. What is romantic.