Some off-the-cuff writing lessons I have taught my students in the last week*:
1) If you have two sentences in a row that sound like they could be in fortune cookies, you must change one of them.
2) Do not say music is as much a part of you as your pancreas, or any other internal organ. In fact, leave your internal organs out of it if you can.
3) If you start an essay with the sentence "It doesn't matter that Adam Lambert is gay," make sure you don't spend the rest of that essay proving that to you it's the ONLY thing that matters.
4) The best way to get a B instead of an A is to include the phrase "He was getting old, about 35" in your essay.
5) Try to avoid the words obfuscate, honestly and myself in your writing. Obfuscate only obfuscates your writing; if you're writing it, it's understood to be honest; and me works just as well.
6) There's almost no way to frame the sentence "I was so excited" that doesn't make the reader wonder why they don't feel quite as excited as you do.
*warning: these lessons may or may not help your writing, were made up on the fly in class (except No. 3), and may be amended at any time.
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