On writing

This is the one thing that stays the same: my husband got hurt. Everything else changes. A grandson needs me and then he doesn’t. My children are close then one drifts away. I smoke and don’t smoke; I knit ponchos, then hats, shawls, hats again, stop knitting, start up again. The clock ticks, the seasons shift, the night sky rearranges itself, but my husband remains constant, his injuries are permanent.

Opening lines from Abigail Thomas' memoir Three Dog Life.

An explanation of why this passage is effective:

Thomas’s short sentences create mood. Structurally, she spins an ingenious centrifuge to take readers through the whirlwind of her confusion and despair. Beginning with blunt declarations, she builds momentum with a list and then uses commas to amplify the pace and tension, creating turbulent whitecaps on the flat, sullen surface of her introductory statement.