Writing Inspiration

Page After Page by Heather Sellers, Kelly Nickell

Ninety percent of beginning writers stop practicing their craft before they have a chance to discover their talents. This essential and encouraging guide: Helps readers build a writing life, one that will help them continue to write without giving up; approaches the writing life without using new age and self-help techniques, so writers from all walks of life will benefit from the advice and provides engaging exercises to help readers shape their writing life and achieve their goals. Written by an author with more than twenty years of teaching and writing experience, Page After Page helps writers keep writing, page after page, day after day.

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The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

The Artist's Way is the seminal book on the subject of creativity. An international bestseller, millions of readers have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist's life. Still as vital today-or perhaps even more so-than it was when it was first published one decade ago, it is a powerfully provocative and inspiring work. In a new introduction to the book, Julia Cameron reflects upon the impact of The Artist's Way and describes the work she has done during the last decade and the new insights into the creative process that she has gained. Updated and expanded, this anniversary edition reframes The Artist's Way for a new century.

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Write From the Heart by Hal Zina Bennett

In his first edition of Write from the Heart, Hal Zina Bennett presented a spiritual approach to writing that showed both beginners and seasoned authors how to overcome blocks, unleash their creative voice, and see their books into print. In this edition, he gives readers an even more interactive experience by incorporating exercises he's developed during his many years conducting workshops. An all-new chapter on supportive critiquing shows readers how to make contacts in the all-important community of writers and how to get help with the process of writing and refining.

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Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

Wherein we discover that many of the "rules" for good writing and good sex are the same: Keep your hand moving, lose control, and don't think. Goldberg brings a touch of both Zen and well... *eroticism* to her writing practice, the latter in exercises and anecdotes designed to ease you into your body, your whole spirit, while you create, the former in being where you are, working with what you have, and writing from the moment.

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On Writing by Stephen King

"Long live the King" hailed Entertainment Weekly upon the publication of Stephen King's On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer's craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King's advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported near-fatal accident in 1999 -- and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, On Writing will empower and entertain everyone who reads it -- fans, writers, and anyone who loves a great story well told.

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Sometimes the Magic Works by Terry Brooks

Writing is writing, whether one’s setting is a magical universe or a suburban backyard. Spanning topics from the importance of daydreaming to the necessity of writing an outline, from the fine art of showing instead of merely telling to creating believable characters who make readers care what happens to them, Brooks draws upon his own experiences, hard lessons learned, and delightful discoveries made in creating the beloved Shannara and Magic Kingdom of Landover series, The Word and The Void trilogy, and the bestselling Star Wars novel The Phantom Menace.

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Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life by Natalie Goldberg

Natalie Goldberg, author of the bestselling Writing Down The Bones, teaches a method of writing that can take you beyond craft to the true source of creative power: The mind that is "raw, full of energy, alive and hungry." 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. And here also is a larger vision of the writer's task: balancing daily responsibilities with a commitment to writing; knowing when to take risks as a writer and a human being; coming to terms with success and failure and loss; and learning self-acceptance -- both in life and art.Wild Mind will change your way of writing. It may also change your life.

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Thunder and Lightning : Cracking Open the Writer's Craft by Natalie Goldberg

In this long-awaited sequel to her bestselling books Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind, Natalie Goldberg, one of the most sought-after writing teachers of our time, takes us to the next step in the writing process.You’ve filled your notebooks, done your writing practice, discovered your original voice. Now what? How do you turn this raw material into finished stories, essays, poems, novels, memoirs? Drawing on her own experience as a writer and a student of Zen, Natalie shows you how to create a field big enough to allow your “wild mind” to wander — and then gently direct its tremendous energy into whatever you want to write. Here, too, is invaluable advice on how to overcome writer’s block, how to deal with the fear of criticism and rejection, how to get the most from working with an editor, and how to learn from reading accomplished authors. With humor and compassion, Goldberg recounts her own mistakes on the way to publication — and how you can avoid the most common pitfalls of the beginning writer. Through it all there is a deep celebration of writing itself — not just as the means to an end, but as a path to living a deeper, more fully alive life.

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Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

Think you've got a book inside of you? Anne Lamott isn't afraid to help you let it out. She'll help you find your passion and your voice, beginning from the first really crummy draft to the peculiar letdown of publication. Readers will be reminded of the energizing books of writer Natalie Goldberg and will be seduced by Lamott's witty take on the reality of a writer's life, which has little to do with literary parties and a lot to do with jealousy, writer's block and going for broke with each paragraph. Marvelously wise and best of all, great reading.

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Word Painting by Rebecca McClanahan

Recommended by a member but no description is available at Amazon. Please read the reviews.

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Discovering the Writer Within: 40 Days to More Imaginative Writing by Bruce Ballenger, Barry Lane

Messrs. Ballenger and Lane, each coming from the non-fiction and fiction sides of the fence, respectively, take the Biblical "40 day" timeframe and slap a step-by- step program upon it, filled with exercises and techniques designed to make your "inner writer" face light of day, embrace confusion, develop an eye as well as an ear, and finally, face the ultimate test: writing regularly, even when you don't feel like it.

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The Merry Heart: Reflections on Reading, Writing, and the World of Books by Robertson Davies

Readers around the world continue to mourn the 1995 death of a beloved literary icon, but this rich and varied collection of Robertson Davies's writings on the world of books and the miracle of language captures his inimitable voice and sustains his presence among us. Coming almost entirely from Davies' own files of unpublished material, these twenty-four essays and lectures range over themes from "The Novelist and Magic" to "Literature and Technology," from "Painting, Fiction, and Faking," to "Can a Doctor Be a Humanist?" and "Creativity in Old Age." For devotees of Davies and all lovers of literature and language, here is the "urbanity, wit, and high seriousness mixed by a master chef" (Cleveland Plain Dealer)--vintage delights from an exquisite literary menu. Davies himself says merely: "Lucky writers. . .like wine, die rich in fruitiness and delicious aftertaste, so that their works survive them."

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Writing Past Dark : Envy, Fear, Distraction and Other Dilemmas in the Writer's Life by Bonnie Friedman

The first book for writers that explores the emotional side of writing--dealing with everything from envy to guilt to the dreaded writer's block.

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Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass

A breakout novel is one that rises out of its category--such as literary fiction, mystery, romance, or thriller--and hits the bestseller lists. Maass explains the elements that all breakout novels share and shows readers how to use these elements to write a novel that has a good chance of succeeding in a crowded marketplace. They'll learn to:
create a powerful and sweeping sense of time and place, develop larger-than-life characters, sustain a high degree of narrative tension from start to finish, weave sub-plots into the main action, explore universal themes that will interest a large audience of readers.

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The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile by Noah Lukeman

The First Five Pages reveals the necessary elements of good writing, whether it be fiction, nonfiction, journalism, or poetry, and points out errors to be avoided, such as : A weak opening hook, Overuse of adjectives and adverbs, Flat or forced metaphors or similes, Melodramatic, commonplace or confusing dialogue, Undeveloped characterizations and lifeless settings and Uneven pacing and lack of progression.

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The Plot Thickens: 8 Ways to Bring Fiction to Life by Noah Lukeman

As a literary agent, Noah Lukeman hears thousands of book pitches a year. Often the stories sound great in concept, but never live up to their potential on the page. Lukeman shows beginning and advanced writers how to implement the fundamentals of successful plot development, such as character building and heightened suspense and conflict. Writers will find it impossible to walk away from this invaluable guide---a veritable fiction-writing workshop---without boundless new ideas.

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Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers by Carolyn See

Carolyn See distills a lifetime of experience as novelist, memoirist, critic, and creative-writing professor into this marvelously engaging how-to book. Partly the nuts and bolts of writing (plot, point of view, character, voice) and partly an inspirational guide to living the life you dream of, Making a Literary Life takes you from the decision to “become” a writer to three months after the publication of your first book. A combination of writing and life strategies (do not tell everyone around you how you yearn to be a writer; send a “charming note” to someone you admire in the industry five days a week, every week, for the rest of your life; find the perfect characters right in front of you), Making a Literary Life is for people not usually considered part of the literary loop: the non–East Coasters, the secret scribblers.

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If You Can Talk You Can Write by Joel Saltzman

When we talk, we tell stories and present ideas without anxiety. But when we think about writing, panic often sets in. Joel Saltzman, a former comedian, teaches how to "talk" on paper. Listen and learn how to: conquer perfectionism, parlysis, and procrastination; silence your inner critic; stop worring about the "rules" of grammar; get inspired if you don't feel inspired; and write with conviction, not apology. If You Can Talk, You Can Write gives you the daring freedom to produce the kind of writing that is creative, energetic, and most of all, truly your own.

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The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler

In 1993, The Writer's Journey became one of the most popular books on writing of the last 50 years. Now, the 2nd Edition provides new insights and observations from Vogler's pioneering work in mythic structure for writers.

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Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande

Even in 1934, Dorothea Brande knew that most writers didn't need another book on "technique" -- and this, before so many more would be published. No, she realized, as John Gardner notes in his foreword, "the root problems of the writer are personality problems," and thus her wise book is designed to simply help you get over yourself and start writing, with techniques ranging from a simple declaration to write every day at a fixed time -- no matter what -- to exercises that come close to inventing the TM and self-actualization movements that would follow a few decades later.

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Starting from Scratch by Rita Mae Brown

From the best-selling author of Rubyfruit Jungle and Bingo, here is a writers' manual as provocative, frank, and funny as her fiction. Unlike most writers' guides, this one had as much to do with how writers live as with mastering the tools of their trade. Rita Mae Brown begins with a very personal account of her own career, from her days as a young poet who had written a novel no publisher wanted to take a chance on, right up to her recent adventures as a Hollywood screenwriter. In a sassy style that makes her outspoken advice as entertaining as it is useful, she provides straight talk about paying the rent while maintaining the energy to write; and dealing with agents, publishers, critics, and the publicity circus; about pursuingj ournalisim, academia, or screen-writing; and about rejecting the Hemingway myth of the hard-living, hard-drinking genius. In addition Brown, a former teacher or writing, offers a serious examination of the writer's tool--language, plotting, characters, symbolism--plus exercises to sharpen the ear for dialogue, and a fascinating, annoted reading list of important works from the seventh century to the late twentieth.

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If You Want to Write: A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland

In her 93 remarkable years, veteran freelance writer, memoirist, and writing teacher Brenda Ueland published some six million words. She once said there were two simple rules that she followed absolutely: to tell the truth, and not do anything she didn't want to do. Such integrity both distinguishes and defines If You Want to Write, her bestselling classic that first appeared in the late 1930s and has inspired thousands to find their own creative center. As Carl Sandburg once remarked, Ueland's primer is "the best book ever written on how to write."

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The Courage to Write : How Writers Transcend Fear by Ralph Keyes

Katherine Anne Porter called courage "the first essential" for a writer. "I have to talk myself into bravery with every sentence," agreed Cynthia Ozick, "sometimes every syllable." E. B. White said he admired anyone who "has the guts to write anything at all."An author who has taught writing for more than thirty years, Ralph Keyes assures readers that anxiety is felt by writers at every level and can be harnessed to produce honest and disciplined work., Keyes offers specifics on how to make the best use of writers' workshops and conferences and how to handle criticism of works in progress; he also exposes the most common "false fear busters" (needing new equipment, a better setting, a new agent). Throughout, he includes the comments of many accomplished writers--Pat Conroy, Amy Tan, Rita Dove, Isabel Allende, and others--on how they transcended their own anxieties to produce great works.

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Telling Lies for Fun & Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block

Characters refusing to talk? Plot plodding along? Where do good ideas come from anyway? In this wonderfully practical volume, two-time Edgar Award-winning novelist Lawrence Block takes an inside look at writing as a craft and as a career. From studying the market, to mastering self-discipline and "creative procrastination," through coping with rejections, Telling Lies for Fun & Profit is an invaluable sourcebook of information. It is a must read for anyone serious about writing or understanding how the process works.

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Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain

No description. Recommended by member and highly recommended by Amazon reviewers.

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Writing and Selling Your Novel by Jack M. Bickham

No description but excellent reviews at Amazon. Also recommended by members.

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Listen to Me: Writing Life into Meaning by Lynn Lauber

Writing on Both Sides of the Brain by Henriette Anne Klauser