Notes in the Margin

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
by Anne Lamott
Anchor
239 pages, 1995

reviewed by Karen L. Alaniz

After spending years in front of the classroom teaching aspiring writers, Anne Lamott decided to gather her teaching notes and write a book. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life is the result. Her advice is a stew of sometimes simple, sometimes quirky, but always real ingredients, with a serving of humor ladled onto every page.

Lamott meets writers where they are, regardless of success or status. From the enthusiastic beginner to the struggling veteran, her advice is applicable to all. With chapter titles like, “Getting Started” and “Short Assignments” she gives practical advice that can be applied immediately. Most of her students (and now readers) begin with a huge goal in mind; to write their life story, or to write a book that chronicles the history of say, women. But Lamott observes that when it comes to actually sitting down to write, they are paralyzed by the enormity of the task. So Lamott offers some practical guidance. (more…)

The Right to Write
by Julia Cameron
Penguin Putnam
236 pages, 1998

reviewed by Hope Wilbanks

In The Right To Write, author Julia Cameron explores the writing life. She covers every imaginable topic, from bad writing and letting yourself write to being an open channel and beating procrastination.

The thing I love most about The Right To Write is that there is a constant “welcoming” theme. Cameron welcomes the writer to take the leap to begin. She welcomes writers to meet the page daily. She beckons writers to create a habitual practice of writing regardless of time or circumstance.

I’ve read this book twice, and each time I’ve taken away something different. When I pull this book from its shelf, I bring along a stack of Post-It notes with me to jot notes as I read. In fact, if you could see my copy right now, you’d see a colorful splash of those sticky pieces of paper peeking out from countless pages.

The first reading was like sitting down to a huge, thick steak, juices flowing and steam rising. I gleaned great inspiration from The Right To Write; so much so that it motivated me to sit down at my desk and start writing again after a long dry spell. The second time around was as if feasting on a dessert of hot fudge cake with piping hot fudge sauce melting pools of ice cream. It’s that good.

The chapter “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?” delves into a popular theory among writers: “disciplined” writing. I have personally struggled long and hard with the issue of perfection—writing at the perfect place, during the perfect time of day, “perfect” writing…period.

It’s easy to become trapped in a mindset of telling yourself that your writing must be “perfect” in some sense or fashion. Cameron suggests however, that writing is perfect in itself. There is no perfect way to do it. The key simply lies in writing. Or, to quote Cameron, “Writing is about making brain children. When it comes to conception, it can, but doesn’t need to be in missionary position.” This clear-cut, unpretentious statement opened my eyes to the simplicity of the writing process.

In another chapter called “Making It,” Cameron discusses every writer’s fear, the fear of not “making it” as a writer. I believe this single chapter was probably the most inspiring one to me the first time I read it. “Think of it like making a chair,” says Cameron. “You make a chair and someone buys it. You write something and someone buys it.” Every writer would be less stressed and enjoy writing more if we could embrace this ideal.

The Right To Write is food for a writer’s soul. Cameron has a special way of turning ordinary everyday occurrences into deep, spiritual learning lessons for writers. In this book, writers are invited to become rooted in the process and take ourselves seriously.

If you have reached a place where you feel like you just can’t write any longer, grab a copy of The Right To Write. You will be encouraged to begin again, to enjoy the process, and to write from your heart.

****
Hope Wilbanks is an inspirational writer living in central Louisiana. She is the author of The Self-Empowered Woman and publisher of Cup of Hope Magazine.

Although this article was published by Kristen King, the original author retains all copyright and should be contacted for reprint requests.

Scrivener 1.0 (Mac OS X)
by Keith Blount
Literature & Latte
$34.99 (30-day free trial)

reviewed by Melissa Barton

Keeping research notes, outlines, and drafts of long documents organized in an ordinary word processor can be daunting and time-consuming for writers. Those who write and outline out of order or who have large amounts of research material to handle can be frustrated by flipping between multiple documents and keeping track of file versions. Since most of us aren’t programmers, we had to live with the limitations of word processors. Fortunately, Keith Blount had the same problem.

Blount designed Scrivener to organize his own writing, incorporating new features as suggested by users. Scrivener combines features of an outlining program and a word processor, with some other, less common functions. A basic tutorial comes with the program and gives an overview of most features. The program is very self-evident and easy to use, and the extensive help file is well written and clearly illustrated with screenshots.

Each Scrivener project collects documents, which can represent chapters, sections, and subsections, into a “draft.” The documents in the draft can be selected and rearranged via a menu on the left side of the screen. Below the draft is another menu for selected and organizing research. The main text viewer can be single or split to show different parts of the draft.

At the top of the screen are buttons for accessing the outliner (which is similar to OmniOutliner) and the corkboard, which shows virtual index cards corresponding to sections. These index cards have short summaries and can be easily rearranged. A notes field and color-coding for writing stage are attached to each section.

Although designed primarily with novelists and screenwriters in mind, Scrivener is also a good organizational tool for drafting nonfiction books, long academic papers, reports, and other complex documents. Since some typical word processor features, such as footnoting, are pretty bare bones or not supported, documents have to be exported to other programs for final formatting. The export process is straightforward and quick.

Scrivener won’t work for everyone’s creative process, and Blount suggests some alternatives for both Mac and Windows users. An earlier beta version of Scrivener, Scrivener Gold, is available for free, although it has fewer features than Scrivener 1.0. Scrivener is not available for Windows or earlier versions of Mac OS, but Blount plans to continue improving and updating the OS X version.

****
Melissa Barton is a freelance science writer and editor based in Colorado. Her portfolio can be viewed online at http://www.rosettastones.net.

Although this article was published by Kristen King, the original author retains all copyright and should be contacted for reprint requests.

The Renegade Writer’s Query Letters That Rock
By Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell
Marion Street Press, Inc., 2006
208 pages, $14.95

reviewed by Liz Lewis

Books about writing, and especially about how to write query letters, are almost a dime a dozen these days. And most seem to regurgitate already known information. But the Renegade Writer’s Query Letters that Rock by Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell have managed to avoid that. Instead they have created a text that all new (and old) writers should read. Why? Because they have the answers.

Written in an easy to read, often humorous conversational style, this book has only one goal - to help writers perfect the query letter. And they clearly state in the introduction how they believe this can be done: ‘If you want to be successful, watch the successful. Then copy everything they do.’

The book is divided into two sections. Section I covers ‘Query letter Q & A’. It should be subtitled ‘Everything you wanted to know about query letters and were afraid to ask.’ I can almost guarantee that if you scan the questions listed in the contents, there will be at least one or two that you are dying to know the answer to. Within seconds, I was able to find out what to put in the subject line of a email query - a question that had been bugging me for weeks.

Section II provides real life examples of successful query letters, with comments from both the writer and the editor on what makes them successful. In other words, you are offered the opportunity to get inside the writer’s, and more importantly, the editor’s head, and learn why these query letters succeeded.

I have been a fan of Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell ever since reading their first book, The Renegade Writer. Now, with their second book, I am a true convert to the renegade way of freelance writing.

****
Liz Lewis is a New Zealand-based freelance writer. Check out her My Year of Getting Published blog for all things writing and her Travel New Zealand blog for all things New Zealand. Liz can be reached at kiwiwriter@xtra.co.nz.

Although this article was published by Kristen King, the original author retains all copyright and should be contacted for reprint requests.

If You Want to Write
by Brenda Ueland
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1997
179 pages, $11.95

reviewed by Karen Fisher-Alaniz

Brenda Ueland’s book, If You Want to Write, is not just for aspiring writers. It is aimed at anyone who has within them a yearning to create. Ueland taught writing at colleges and universities. She wrote more than 5 million words in her lifetime. But the accomplishment she was most proud of, was teaching ordinary people to write, at her local YMCA. The book is sprinkled with examples of her students’ accomplishments and their struggles to achieve them.

And Ueland has no qualms about stating what is true, that she is a great writer and a magnificent teacher. She quotes William Blake, “He who knows not his own genius has none.”

Chapter titles include “Everybody is talented, original and has something important to say”; “Be careless, reckless! Be a lion, be a pirate, when you write”; and “Why you are not to be discouraged, annihilated, by rejection slips.” But my personal favorite is the chapter “Why women who do too much housework should neglect it for their writing.”

Why is that my favorite? This book was originally published in 1938 by a woman who dared to wear pants and get her hair cut short at a barber shop. I am inspired by the fact that she was telling women, still under social pressures to keep their ankles covered, to forget their housework and pluck away at a typewriter instead. Her lessons, her wisdom are both timeless and timely. She was indeed a renaissance woman.

If You Want to Write is subtitled, A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit. Many pages contain long footnotes, more like after-thoughts. I often found those even more compelling than the text itself. Ueland leads by word and by example, giving us confidence to follow her, when she says to, “…work from now until you die, with real love and imagination and intelligence, at your writing… If you do that, out of the mountains that you write some mole hills will be published.”

And so…dirty dishes sit in my sink and mounds of laundry on the floor as I pluck away! Oh what joy to neglect my housework.

****
Karen Fisher-Alaniz recently finished transcribing more than 400 pages of letters her father wrote during World War II. She is currently writing a book based on the secret life he led as a code breaker during the war. Contact her at karenlalaniz@hotmail.com.

Although this article was published by Kristen King, the original author retains all copyright and should be contacted for reprint requests.

Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writer’s Manual

By Rita Mae Brown

Bantam, 1989

272 pages

reviewed by Sarah E. White

If only Rita Mae Brown would take a little time out of her busy schedule of writing best-selling mystery novels with her cat Sneaky Pie to revise and update her wonderful book of advice to writers, Starting from Scratch. You’ll get an idea how old the book is from the cover, which features Brown, her cat, a stack of manuscript papers and a typewriter.

This book is like a time warp to that weird, wonderful world before the Internet and pervasive home computers (there is brief mention of how great computers are, but she insists a writer needs a typewriter, along with good reference books and a cat or two). The references to technology will make you grin, and the age of this book is by no means a reason not to read it.

When she says “Starting from Scratch,” she means it. Brown spends a large portion of her book talking about words: what they mean, which ones you should use (Anglo-Saxon versus Latin), verbs, passive voice, adverbs and adjectives, the joy of the subjunctive and the need to find the emotionally evocative word.

Of course there are sections here on plot and character development, writing dialogue and ways to make money writing, but the really interesting parts of this book are those the other books don’t have, including Brown’s curriculum for a four-year “literary conservatory” and her list of the best reads in English from 665 to 1981. She also explains why every writer should learn Latin and provides exercises such as the parent game, where you start by giving yourself imaginary parents, then famous people and people you know and finally your characters.

This book is definitely a worthwhile read even more than 15 years after its publication. Brown has a wonderful, chatty voice and a lot of wisdom to share with writers of all levels. You’ll probably find yourself inspired to tackle her reading list, and maybe even to take a crack at learning Latin.

****

Sarah E. White is a freelance writer and editor living in Arkansas. She is the author of Doing the Write Thing: The Easy Way to Self-Edit. Her home on the web is http://www.sarahewhite.com.

Although this article was published by Kristen King, the original author retains all copyright and should be contacted for reprint requests.

On Writing Well

By William Zinsser

Collins, 2006

336 pages, $14.95

reviewed by Terrisa Meeks

Within the first 10 pages of William Zinsser’s On Writing Well, he tells us that the most important thing a writer brings to her work is herself. “Ultimately, the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is,” he says. For the rest of On Writing, he encourages writers to be genuine, accurate, and skilled with the English language.

On Writing Well feels like a text book, probably because it’s loaded with instructions and examples. The chapters can stand alone, so if you’re fascinated with sports writing, turn directly to Chapter 17. Chapter 10, “Bits and Pieces,” encapsulates most of the material in On Writingand is so thorough that it could have been titled “Nuts and Bolts.” He instructs us to read, read, read—and to embrace the rewriting process, which he describes as “the essence of writing well: it’s where the game is won or lost.”

The degradation of the English language annoys him, and he singles out repeat offenders: government documents, “journalese,” and pompous businesses. Zinsser wants verbs to remain verbs and nouns to remain nouns. Nonfiction writing is his focus, and he makes a good argument that fiction shouldn’t have a monopoly on the literature label. Using examples like Joan Didion and H.L. Mencken, he makes a point that’s hard to dispute.

“The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components,” Zinsser tells us. He does his best to give us the tools we need to remove junky adverbs, imprecise nouns, and fuzzy organization. He also explains how to focus a story. When one of his students tells him that she wants to write an article about the decline of Iowa farms, Zinsser helps her distill the idea into one small town, one farm, one family. Readers have to connect with a story, he explains, and a close-up on people and places is the best way to hold their attention.

Zinsser is a precise writer who admits that he protects his work “fiercely,” even buying back his pieces from publications that want to make changes he feels are unacceptable. For most writers, this isn’t an option, but it’s refreshing to hear a different point of view on this topic. Most advice to writers encourages more flexibility, not less.

On Writing Well concludes on the same note it began: “When we say we like the style of certain writers, what we mean is that we like their personality as they express it on paper.” Follow Zinsser’s advice, and your readers will find you articulate and clear. What else could a writer ask for?

****

Terrisa Meeks is a freelance writer based in Las Vegas, Nevada. You can visit her on the web at Just Write or Vegas Girl.

Although this article was published by Kristen King, the original author retains all copyright and should be contacted for reprint requests.