Favorite Writing Books

In my office, I have two shelves of books about writing. One holds books I've read and consider keepers. The other contains books I haven't read yet. (Guess which one is crammed full?) The subject matters range from inspiration to technique to writing exercises.

I've already talked here and here about Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way but some of my other favorites are On Writing by Stephen King (big surprise, I know) and Writing the Breakout Novel  by Donald Maass (which, obviously, I haven't done yet.) I've also got books by Natalie Goldberg and Heather Sellers and Maeve Binchy, to name a few more.

I know, I know - I should spend more time writing than reading about writing but I think having a handful of go-to books is kind of like having your own little private cheering/inspiring/consoling section. So, how about you? What are your favorite books about writing? (Maybe I have some of them on my to-be-read shelf.) What about those books keeps them on your shelf? And what about other writing resources or writing magazines - any favorites there?

Book Recommendation: The Artist's Way, Part II

I ended the last post with a note about how comparing our work to others' forces us outside of ourselves and what we can do. Julia Cameron takes it further by talking about originality - "...each of us is our own country, an interesting place to visit. It is the accurate mapping of our own creative interests that invites the term 'original'. We are the 'origin' of our art, its homeland. Viewed this way, originality is the process of remaining true to ourselves."

This book helped me rediscover that it's okay to mull, to doodle, to sit and not-think and to let my imagination take me where it wants to go. I'm so tired of feeling like I'm forcing everything, wrangling it into a corral (or into an outline.)  Cameron says, "All too often, we try to push, pull, outline and control our ideas instead of letting them grow organically. The creative process is a process of surrender, not control." Whoo hoo!

Probably my favorite comparison/description in the whole book is this  - "Ideas, like stalactites and stalagmites, form in the dark inner cave of consciousness...Let them grow in dark and mystery. Let them form on the roof of our consciousness. Let them hit the page in droplets. Trusting this slow and seemingly random drip, we will be startled one day by the flash of "Oh! That's IT!"" 

I hope you all enjoyed this book recommendation. Please feel free to leave comments about what you've read here or let us know if you've already read The Artist's Way and your thoughts on it.

Book Recommendation: The Artist's Way, Part I

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron is one of those books that should have a permanent home on your bookshelf. It's not a writing manual; it's a creative manual. It's a 12 week guide to living an artistic life, no matter who you are.

Now, in all honesty, I didn't follow the program. I ended up picking and choosing what worked for me and what I needed to hear and acknowledge. My copy of the book has so much underlined and starred that it's a wonder I can actually read the text. My point is, don't let the "12 week" part stop you from reading this book. I learned so much from it that I'm doing this "review" in two parts.

"One of the most important things we learn during the twelve weeks is to give up our ideas of perfection and to see a new perspective, to change our focus from product to process." The practice of the Morning Pages really drove this home for me. Basically, it's three pages, written in long hand, of blather. Of stuff you need to get out of your head. Of stuff that's bothering you, angering you, saddening you, blocking you. The Pages are not pretty; they are not art. They are freeing.

The section on Perfectionism really spoke to me - "Perfectionism has nothing to do with getting it right. It has nothing to do with fixing things. It has nothing to do with standards. Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead. It is a loop - an obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details..."

As artists, we must learn to face loss - loss of hope, self-esteem, money. (Rejection may as well move into my house, it's here so often. And it's not a pleasant house guest.) But Cameron makes the point that while most losses are acknowledged, artistic ones often aren't and they become "scar tissue that blocks artistic growth. Deemed too painful, too silly, too humiliating to share...they become, instead, secret losses."

I'll end Part I with this thought - how often do we compare ourselves with others? We see so-and-so getting ahead and we wonder why them and not us. But Cameron says we can't afford to think like this because it takes us out of and away from ourselves, our ideas and choices. We are then defining our creativity in someone else's terms.      

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this book, if you've read it, or on what you've read here. And please come back tomorrow for Part II...

Getting the Gunk Out

I've started doing Morning Pages again.  In The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron defines Morning Pages as "...three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness . . . They might also, more ingloriously, be called brain drain, since that is one of their main functions."

I call it "getting the gunk out."  I try to get on the page all the stuff that's clogging up my brain - anxieties, fears, worries.  It's all the stuff that's dulling down my imagination.  It's the stuff that makes me feel like I'm slogging through uninspired muck.

I'm not sure if it's helping, but it's definitely not hurting anything.  Do any of you do Morning Pages?  Or do you have another system for caring for your creativity?  How do you put the verve back in your verbs, the nuance back in your nouns, the sizzle back in your stories?  (I know, sizzling stories?  See, I told you I need help.)