text: Page 23, commandment 17: ‘Omit needless words.’ ~~I’m a writer~~ I write. At least I try to. As I write to you now, a copy of the *little book* sits before me. A paperweight sits on it, trapping it. Keeping it pinioned, and away from drifting back into my hands. God knows what damage it could do once it gets back there. I first heard of it in my Freshman year ~~of college~~, sitting in the Music Building lounge waiting for my next class when Jason ~~, my roommate of the time, now deceased~~ came crashing in, with the appropriate amount of chaos, announcing to all “Ah shit, I can’t find my Strunk and White.” Everyone else in the room apparently knew what they were talking about, but I sat with a blank stare. ~~I remember asking him about it later. I do not remember his answer, I’m not sure I even listened. I think I was just trying to make conversation - It got quiet at the house.~~ First contact with this good book came in the form of a ~~writing~~ night class I was taking ~~four or~~ five years after that. I remember as the *professor* teaching the class\~\~, a man whose name, coincidentally, was also Jason\~\~ made us write as the spouse of someone lost to 9/11. This was ~~just~~ two nights after it happened - if that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about him then I’ve omitted one analogy too many. It was also at this ill-fated night class that I met Her. She was small, she was proper, and, within two and a half weeks, she was dating me. I was obsessed with both ~~of them~~, these catalysts to servitude. They were the guiding yokes under which my life was kept straight. She kept me sober. It kept me fashionable. She kept me respectable. It kept me publishable. I owe my greatest achievements to them. ~~Choosing to part with one, and forcing myself to part with the other has likely ruined me.~~ And wherever I went and whatever I did, those two were always on my mind and in my fingers, nudging me towards a more articulate existence. It was that phrase - ‘Omit needless words’ - that I swore by the most. In most of my writing I ended up cutting good one or two fifths of it. Eventually this habit came to me as I wrote, a page became a roiling sea of struck through parts. My writing group always knocked me for that one, back when I submitted ~~the majority of~~ my work as hard copies. I bound myself to the adage, every aspect ~~and component~~ of my life being branded with it~~s virtue~~. I threw out clothes bought only a month ago. I would pawn ~~family~~ heirlooms to revel in the simplicity of the space created. I ~~even~~ went as far to sell off my ~~town~~ house, trading it ~~in~~ for a railroad apartment just half a mile over. All straight lines and strong borders and perfectly uniform. I was doing it right. Now Her: she was one of the last artefacts of my old life. My ~~messy~~ first draft. *~~Dead weight~~*~~.~~ She would chide me for it at first, just the occasional prod when it was just a quirk ~~and nothing more~~. But when I sold the house - I think that’s when she knew something was wrong. She pushed her whole operation up a gear. I could tell she wanted to leave me, but she wanted see it through first. So, if something did happen ~~- something bad -~~ ,she couldn’t feel guilty for not being there. I told her what she was doing was unnecessary, ~~that I didn’t need it,~~ but she wouldn’t’ cut it. ~~She refused to.~~ I think she had grown sentimental to it. ~~She had built so much on it.~~ I saw what it was doing to her and, in turn, to me. She decided for me to be rid of the book I needed a change of place. She had no real family there anyway so we picked up everything and left. We were to go far away. We had always waxed poetic about Maine. We would have a layover in Nevada. Neither of us had been before so she suggested we make the most of it and stay a while, drive through the Mojave, that sort of thing. I went along with it. We touched down, hired a car, and set out into the wastes. ~~I drove.~~ ~~Within a couple of hours~~ We arrived at that place Nevada is most recognised for: Nowhere. She came to me, ~~I think to make the most of the privacy,~~ but I was elsewhere. I looked about ~~the wastes,~~ the emptiness, I basked in it. All was free of wanting. All was with purpose. All was unimprovable. *The elements of style.* It was in this moment, where I stared into the face of the minimal sublime, that the little book returned to me, its teaching back on my mind. Its ~~burning~~ fervour to cut all ballast from me, from my work, from my life back in my fingers. I say I must go back to the car for water. There is no water in the car. I drive off. I leave her there. I leave her there. I leave her there. And you know what the worst part is? I felt guilty. I did not feel guilty for submitting to a book. I did not feel guilty for leaving her in the desert. ~~No.~~ I felt guilty for ruining the desert with her presence - that place that wanted for nothing. *’The Elements of Style,’* Page 23, commandment 17: ‘Omit needless words.’ Take its advice, tear it from your copy and leave it in the desert. But don’t do it in the Mojave - ’The Elements of Style,’ Page 25, commandment 18: ‘Avoid a succession of loose sentences.