List of Resources, Part 3

Craft Books, how many do you own?

Part of my self education on learning to write well has been to take a ton of classes. (as opposed to getting an MFA, for instance.) Some teachers are better than others, some have really opened me up to the creative force but more than instructor one has actually shut me down. (but whose fault is that?) Books and lists of writing craft books abound, and those have been teachers for me too.

These craft books are under my desk, supporting my work. But how many of them have I actually read? Note the Writer’s Market from 1999 and again in 2020.

One of the things I’ve learned at Suzanne Kingsbury’s Gateless Academy is that learning to write well is a study in craft, it’s a practice, it’s a way of life. And, with the help of nearly 10 years of psychodynamic psychotherapy under my belt now, I’ve also learned that enjoying this process is a mindset. It’s a power flex to stop measuring myself on progress, productivity. To start dropping into creativity, to hear the Divine of the blank page calling me, to find refuge from my fears in my journaling…all of these efforts are part and parcel to what I am becoming, as a writer.

But the craft books? You can see some of the titles - Seven Drafts, How to Write A Book Proposal, Tell It Slant, Naked, Drunk and Writing, and Writing the Memoir, From Truth to Art, - to name just a few, serve mostly as reference. Do I read them cover to cover? Hell to the No. In reality, I pop them open as distractions, let the eye fall to a random page, or check the index/table of contents for something I think I need help with. It’s like pulling a tarot card during my butt-in-chair time to help keep me on task, circling the work that I’ve already managed to put on the page. Sometimes just looking under my desk at the money I’ve spent on these books is the evidence I need to renew my faith, keep my motivation and momentum.

And, I’ve stopped being so obedient when instructors sell me their books. (budget conscious!) I use the library now, and I lately I blazed through Fast-Draft Your Memoir, Write Your Life Story in 45 hours, (and then bought the workbook!) as well as Blueprint for a Memoir which were enormously helpful. Something about having to give them back to the library causes me to spend more deliberate time with the text, which is also helping me to organize my words already written. To view my words with re-visioning in mind, to thank my former self for putting the words down to begin with; these are elements of the writing practice I’ve picked up along the way.

I can’t finish this post without mentioning Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, which has been somewhat of a bible for me, and of course I love all of Natalie Goldberg’s advice in An Old Friend from Far Away, and The True Secret to Writing, both of which contain lots of prompts.

But I’m curious, fellow writers: how do you use writing craft books? Which ones do you recommend? Which ones have cracked open some profound insight for you?