Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print

I picked this book up when I heard the Director of my MFA program praise it. Taking recommendations from my professors is a good way to read a lot of really amazing books.I’m surprised I didn’t know about this before, and really glad to have read it now. Block gives a thorough, yet completely accessible,…

The INFJ Writer

I’m an INFP, and I still got a lot out of this book. When you do any formal schooling in creative writing, there will be a lot of focus on the technical aspects of the writing. There will be talk of structure, form, voice, tense, person, etc. etc. etc. All of those things are amazing,…

Why I Write

It was probably a year ago that I got the idea that I needed to fall in love with writing again. I used to love the act of writing—I used to spend all my time doing it. Writing horribly derivative stories by hand on wide-ruled, loose, 3-ring-binder-filler paper. And somewhere along the way, probably as…

Story Engineering

I had no idea what I was missing before I picked up this book. I have an MFA, I've been a writer for a long time--but somehow no one managed to phrase things quite like this before. I adore organization, and orderly approaches to tasks and goals (with iterations to fix past mistakes, because we…

The Artist’s Way

There aren’t enough books like this out there.I don’t know if this book would be necessary for everyone—as a woman who grew up in patriarchal America, however, where creative writing is often considered “impractical,” and creativity is villainized as “unproductive”… Well. You can imagine how cathartic it was to hear that it’s OKAY to be…

Big Magic

I hadn’t read any Elizabeth Gilbert before now, but some of my writing friends were reading this book, and it looked intriguing. I’m always up for a nonfiction about the writing process, since that’s the best way to procrastinate from actually writing. Through a series of loosely connected almost-vignettes, Gilbert talks about her writing process,…

Writing with a New Baby

Babies sleep a lot. Except, it seems, when you want them to. My daughter will sleep in the car on the way to the grocery store, in the stroller the whole time we’re at the grocery store, and then for about two minutes after we get home. Which is just enough time to put away…

Restless Legs and Alien Parasites

Arguably, the chances that I’m carrying an alien parasite a la face-eater are pretty slim. We’ve had two ultrasounds, and it looked pretty human at the second one (this doesn’t, however, rule out werewolf, because it wasn’t a full moon on the date of that ultrasound…). Still, when something at the crown of your enlarged…

I’ve Forgotten How to Write

I’ve been blocked for a while on the novel I’m writing. Ask me any time in the past six or seven years if writer’s block is a real thing, I would say, “Nope.” I acknowledge that there’s a balance between inspiration, imagination, dedication and application. “Filling up the creative well” is what some people call…