The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield My rating: 2 of 5 stars This is an odd book which is kind of a stream of consciousness rant about the ways in which an artist struggles with what the author calls “Resistance.” That in itself is…
How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One by Stanley Fish My rating: 5 of 5 stars I read this book immediately after being disappointed by It was the Best of Sentences, It was the Worst of Sentences, so I may have been primed to have an overly enthusiastic reaction to a book…
It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences by June Casagrande My rating: 2 of 5 stars I was expecting something different from this book. The back of book blurbs used phrases like “wickedly funny” and “you’ll laugh all the way to writing better” (the former is a sentence, I know,)…
This week in #storycraft, I asked the Storycrafters to discuss the reason June Casagrande gives us to learn our fundamentals, in It was the Best of Sentences, it was the Worst of Sentences, : “If you want to master the art of the sentence, you must first accept a somewhat unpleasant truth – one a…
Today’s #Storycraft chat was an experiment of sorts. For the past six or seven weeks, I have been spruiking that the chat on May 1st (US time) would be a book club type event at which we would be discussing “On Writing” by Stephen King. I chose King’s book because when I asked for books…
Beginnings, Middles & Ends by Nancy KressMy rating: 5 of 5 stars Beginnings, Middles & Ends, by Nancy Kress is one of the best writing how-to’s that I’ve read, yet. The book is targeted at both novelists and short story writers of any experience. Kress assumes little writing theory on the part of the reader…
How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author by Janet Evanovich My rating: 2 of 5 stars If you love Evanovich, you will love this book. She is generous with her process and uses lots of examples from own work, so it is certainly a glimpse into the writing life of this author. As a…
The Lie That Tells a Truth: A Guide to Writing Fiction by John Dufresne My rating: 3 of 5 stars Dufresne’s The Lie That Tells a Truth is an excellent guide to the craft, I enjoyed the philosophy, but I would suggest that it is more for those who are theory novices (as distinct from…
I’ve been enjoying Betsy Learner’s blog for a long time so I feel a little silly that it has taken me so long to read her book: The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice for Writers. In fact, I can’t even take credit for having finally decided to do so, as it was the…
We all know that the best way to teach is to engage and entertain with the material – this book does it in spades; I couldn’t put it down! Rather than write another how-to book, Mittelmark and Newman have produced a book in a format which will be familiar to TV Tropes readers, naming, describing…
