Collection

Reading books from black-belt storytellers has improved my way of crafting sentences – thanks to my habit of collecting – after jotting down memorable paragraphs from their books.

I can't think of a good reason, but I like collections. One of my vocabulary building hobbies, as an early reader at junior grades, is writing new words (and their meaning from dictionary) on a notebook. That's not all. As I'm getting older, I use my smartphone or laptop to copy good sentences every time I dive into reading.

The joy of collecting good sentences is best captured by my recent reading Martyr! from an Iranian American poet and novelist. Kaveh Akbar has extraordinary skill in writing metaphors. One good example is his way of depicting a crowded studio. He didn't state the size of the studio. He wrote it like this: I lived in a studio so small I could smell my neighbour's farts. 

I couldn't help laughing and copying.