写作技巧

1. Irony

1) There is a human instinct at work here, a kind of back-breaking make-believe that has no reality.

2) …April is for getting irritated all over again at this pointless, time-consuming hobby. I do not understand people who claim to “love” gardening.

The attractions of gardening, I think, at least for a certain number of gardeners, are neurotic and moral.

3) Now, if you could raise hot dogs outside your window, you’d really have something you could justify without a second’s hesitation.

... I find myself going out to lean on the fence and look at that miserable plot of land, resolving with all my rational powers not to plant it again.

She is an outspoken, truthful woman, or she was until she learned better.

2. Personification

1) And the sun means business, suddenly, and has a different, deeper yellow in its beams on the carpet.

2) The birds begin screaming hysterically, thinking what I am thinking—the worms are deliciously worming their way through the melting soil.

3) In some cases, as with beans and cucumbers, your children— as it were, begin to turn upon you in massive numbers, growing more and more each morning and threatening to follow you into the house to strangle you in their vines.

3. Contrast

There are few sights quite as beautiful as a vegetable garden glistening in the sun, all dewy and glittering with a dozen shades of green at seven in the morning. Far lovelier, in fact, than rows of hot dogs.