BD Wilson

In If You Want to Write, Brenda Ueland sets forth not just a philosophy about how to write or how to create, but also about how to live. Beginning writers will certainly be encouraged by Ueland’s words, but even the most experienced have much to glean from Ueland’s simple wisdom.

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Why is it that some writers struggle for months to come up with the perfect sentence or phrase while others, hunched over a keyboard deep into the night, seem unable to stop writing? In The Midnight Disease, neurologist Alice W. Flaherty explores the mysteries of literary creativity: the drive to write, what sparks it, and what extinguishes it.

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The Writer’s Book of Hope: Getting from Frustration to Publication
by Ralph Keyes

The anxiety of rejection is an inevitable part of any writer’s development. In this book, Ralph Keyes turns his attention from the difficulty of putting pen to paper to the frustration of getting the product to the public. Inspiration isn’t nearly as important to the successful writer, he argues, as tenacity, and he offers concrete ways to manage the struggle to publish.

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Self-Editing for Fiction Writers
by Renni Browne and Dave King

The term “editor” has taken on a new connotation in recent years. At today’s publishing houses, editors find most of their time is invested in negotiating contracts, acquiring books, and lunching literary agents. Because this leaves so little time for working on manuscripts, even very strong submissions that need editing tend to be rejected. Writers who use this book can give their work the editorial attention it needs — before the book ever reaches the publisher’s desk. A pre-edited book, short story, or article makes looks like the work of a professional rather than an amateur. As such, its author is far more likely to get published — and to become a better writer in the process.

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Best-selling novelist David Morrell provides insights and advice learned during 30 years of writing and selling novels – insider secrets that are sure to help writers achieve the next level of literary success, whether they’re just beginning or already published! With captivating anecdotes and thoughtful discussion, Morrell explores the basics of the writing craft, from structure and character to dialogue and style, allowing readers to look, first-hand, into the mind of an internationally known best-selling novelist.

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To know how the great writers create their magic, one needs to engage in a close reading of the masters, for that is precisely what successful writers have done for thousands of years. College programs in creative writing and summer workshops serve a purpose, but they can never replace a careful reading of the likes of Austen, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Kafka, Salinger, Tolstoy, and Woolf. In this excellent guide, Prose explains exactly what she means by close reading, drawing attention to the brick and mortar of outstanding narratives: words, sentences, paragraphs, character, dialogue, details, and more. In the process, she does no less than escort readers to a heightened level of appreciation of great literature.

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Fans of Goldberg’s popular books on writing, Writing Down the Bones (1986) and Wild Mind (1990), will find much of interest in her latest effort. Full of suggestions about the writing life and the wide variety of techniques and strategies that can be brought to bear on the writing process, this book shows once again Goldberg’s commitment to “writing practice” and to the value of tracing the diverse ways she and others discover and develop subject matter.

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O’Connor uses humor as she takes apart sentences and their parts and shows how each element is used effectively. She does get into the heavy-duty writing tools and even the pitfalls, including point of view, jargon, and rhythm.

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Here is compassionate, practical, and often humorous advice about how to find time to write, how to discover your personal style, how to make sentences come alive, and how to overcome procrastination and writer’s block — including more than thirty provocative “Try this” exercises to get your pen moving.

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