Welcome to Windowpane

This is a space for writers to flex their writing muscles

Good prose is like a windowpane. — George Orwell.

In my online writing course, The Art of Clear Writing, I have a slide early on with the quote above. Orwell’s point is this: a windowpane has a function. It is meant to give you a clear view of what’s on the other side. It should not draw attention to itself, as that detracts from the view.

Good prose is also the means to an end. That end can differ. You could be writing to evoke an emotion, change the reader’s mind or tell an entertaining story. In each case, you must have clarity on what effect you want to have on the reader, and how to get there.

It is a common trap to imagine that the act of writing involves only the writer and her laptop. We take the reader for granted. The metaphor of the windowpane reminds us to keep the reader at the forefront of our consideration.

A Writing Community

I kicked off my course in April, 2020, and each batch was supposed to last for a month. Instead, it seems that they will all last a lifetime. Over the last six months, over 300 of the participants have formed an online group that they call The Clear Writing Community. We give each other writing prompts and lots of feedback. We also have workshops on weekends. And there is some lovely writing emerging from these exercises.

The purpose of this newsletter is to showcase some of this writing. I am often stunned at the quality of writing I see during the course, some of it written at a brisk pace to meet an exercise deadline. Some of the participants are already published authors — and I am sure many others will join them.

We already have a large bank of diverse pieces, and this newsletter will appear three times a week. Do subscribe using the button below!

Also, feel free to sign up for The Art of Clear Writing. It’s not just a writing course — it is now a community.

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Thanks to Nidhi Khanna for suggesting that we call the newsletter Windowpane.