And your main obsessions have power; they are what you will come back to in your
writing over and over again. .... They probably take over your life whether you
want them to or not, so you ought to get them to work for you. - Natalie
Goldberg
********
I'm reading Natalie Goldberg's book Writing Down the Bones. It makes me laugh in spots--she has a section on obsessions and talks about writing as an obsession for some people. She talks about writers who always think they should be writing no matter what else they might be doing--ha! I can relate to that. And writers who drink or eat too much chocolate (me) are doing it not because they are writers, but because they are writers who are not writing. And obsession twisted into something else.
On the whole, I enjoy reading books about writing. I ordered Heather Seller's latest writing book--Chapter after Chapter. But I found it interesting that when I talked to another writer about Sellers other book Page by Page, she didn't like it--and at first I felt the same way. Because Heather's writing style isn't mine. I'm not going to start writing by hand. I'm not going to draw little circles when I get stuck (I eat chocolate instead--or take a shower if I can). But in the end, I found if I take the stuff that does work and add it to my mix, it works.
When I was new at writing, it freaked me out. I felt like I had to do it (writing that is) a certain way. What I have learned from reading and attending writing conferences and small writing groups--and most of all just by writing--is that there are as many different ways to write as there are writers. I've started to do the teacher inservice rule (works for church sermons too)--if I get one good idea from it, then it's worth it. Granted, if I buy the book, I'm hoping for more than one idea. (I'm a librarian--go to your library and rent it free, then at least it doesn't cost you cold hard cash if it sucks.)
So, having said all that, any of you have a great writing book to recommend? Heather Sellers book Page by Page is inspiring to new writers (In my opinion) I love Anne Lamont's Bird by Bird. So far I'm enjoying Writing Down the Bones (I find it makes me inspired to write every day) And I have to admit I have a librarian's obsession with owning books, so I also have Story Structure Architect (kind of freaks me out because I'm still not sure about the whole plot thing--I just want to tell the story), Novelist's Essential Guide to Creating Plot and Novelist's Essential Guide to Creating Scenes, Immediate Fiction (haven't read it yet), Definitive Book of Body Language, Sometime the Magic Works (Terry Brooks), Character Naming, Character Traits (still waiting for that one to show up in the mail), Talk the Talk (another I'm waiting for), and of course, The Writer's Market.
I agree with Seller's on one thing for sure: writing means sitting down and writing--not reading about writing. I made the rule that I can only read about writing outside my writing time. (Incidentally, I've had to do the same thing with character profiling. I was starting to spend more time drawing and profiling my characters than actually writing!)
Happy writing!
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