In my last blog, I promised to write about ‘how to’ manuals. There are many excellent guides to creative writing. The few that I have read include: Stephen King On Writing; Hooked by Les Edgerton; Reading Like A Writer by Francine Prose. (Great name!) I also follow K.M.Weiland and Jerry Jenkins online.
I list a few more titles at the end of the blog, but the book that has excited me the most is Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg.
A student of Zen, she believes in making writing your practice. Instead of doing a sitting meditation, you write and the writing becomes a way to penetrate your life and go where you need and want to go.
If that sounds a bit woo-woo, then I’ve done her a disservice. The book is filled with good advice and useful exercises. In the chapter on Syntax, for example, she suggests taking a boring piece of prose, breaking it up and using the words as wooden blocks to be jumbled up and rebuilt in a way that opens up new possibilities.
This is what she has to say in her chapter entitled The Goody Two-Shoes Nature:
“In order to improve your writing, you have to practice just like any other sport. But don’t be dutiful and make it into a blind routine. “Yes, I have written an hour today and I wrote an hour yesterday and an hour the day before.” Don’t just put in your time. That is not enough. You have to make great effort. Be willing to put your whole life on the line when you sit down for writing practice. Otherwise you are just mechanically pushing the pen across the page and intermittently looking at the clock to see of your time is up.
“Some people hear the rule “Write every day” and do it and don’t improve. They are just being dutiful. That is the way of the Goody Two-shoes. It is a waste of energy because it takes tremendous effort to just follow rules if your heart isn’t into it. If you find that this is your basic attitude, then stop writing. Stay away from it for a week or a year. Wait until you are hungry to say something, until there is an aching in you to speak. Then come back."
If I could only read one book about writing, then Writing Down the Bones would be the one. Another book I found inspiring was Light the Dark edited by Joe Fassler. Other books that I have read or dipped into include: How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method by Randy Ingermanson; Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell; Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card.)