Book excerpt: Whether you're composing a letter, writing a school thesis, or starting a novel, The Oxford Essential Guide to Writing offers expert advice on how to think more creatively, how to conjure up ideas from scratch, and how to express those ideas clearly and elegantly. No matter where you find yourself in the writing process - from the daunting blank page to the rough draft that needs shaping to the small but important questions of punctuation - you'll find what you need in this one handy, all-inclusive volume.