Writing Down the Bones

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Summary: Free your mind
Review: Writing Down to the Bones by Natalie Goldberg is an excellent guide for writers stuck a little much in a routine.

Instead of pondering the usual, Goldberg's spirit and philosophy encourages one to break free space.

The writing is highly energetic and free.

I recommend this book highly.

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Summary: Get this book!
Review: Excellent book for not only learning how to write but how to ACT like a writer. Lots of practical ideas to bring out your creativity.

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Summary: Essential reading for anyone passionate about writing!
Review: Hands down one of the best books I've read about writing. Goldberg is refreshingly honest and candid about herself and the process of writing. There is no beating around the bush in this work.

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Summary: Free Flowing from the Heart
Review: Natilie Goldberg inpires and motivates writers to be true to themselves and write from the heart. Ms. Goldberg's experience with her desire to connect with herself spills off the pages. She allows herself to be self-absorbed in her work, and offers the reader wisdom from her past experiences. Her titles are humorous, and they help to build metaphors pertaining to writing. Goldberg's writing is easy and free flowing.

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Summary: Paperback inspiration
Review: Anytime you think you want to write, or anytime you are writing, or anytime you are trying unsuccessfully to write, this book should be at your fingertips. Goldberg has a delicious way of filling her reader with enthusiasm and insight and inspiration. I turn to this book again and again for inspiration when I'm writing, and even when I just feel kind of blah about life. It's really a treasure! If you don't think you personally could use or would ever need a book like this one (come on....you really do), I'd bet anything that you know someone else who would love it. You'll be happy to have it in your library, and if you give it as a gift, you'll have a friend for life.

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Summary: A Mixed Bag of Bones
Review: I align myself more with the negative reviews of this book. It's easy to get caught up in some of the philosophical warm-fuzzy rhetoric of Ms. Goldberg. Akin to watching Oprah pull at an audience's heartstrings, Ms. Goldberg pulls readers in with story after story trumpeting the same message of writing from the heart. The initial reaction is to feel that there's nothing to question about what Ms. Goldberg says.

When I purchased the book, I saw nothing to indicate that it was specific to one particular form of writing, but after reading it, I feel that the author speaks much more to poetry than other forms of writing. The author on several occasions admonishes us to write in the moment and not dwell on ideas we've had in the past. She relates an experience of one student who had a fully-formed idea while out jogging but couldn't reproduce it when s/he got home to the blank page. Goldberg went into a spiel about how we should just let go of those thoughts that are not inspired or conceived in the moment that we sit down to write. That's where I have a fundamental disagreement with her and feel her philosophy becomes almost destructive to new writers. Perhaps poetry functions that way. Perhaps someone has to have that spontaneous quality about their work in order for it to be fresh and exciting. I don't know. I'm not a poet. However, for novels, short stories, and longer works, you would be a fool to let great ideas get away. Personally, I like to let some of those ideas percolate for weeks and even years. Yes, we mature and our perspectives change, but in a lot of cases that only means that we can approach a subject in a different way as we grow older. It doesn't make the subject any better or worse to write about.

Bottom line: I came away from the book with mixed feelings. In my opinion she crossed over the line of reason too often in the book to put forth her spiritual views. It was like a one day seminar that gets you pumped up, but then you get home and review your notes, and realize, sadly, that it was mainly hype with very little substance. I can summarize her tome with three bullet points: Be true to thine ownself. Always observe the world around you. Make writing a habit in your life.

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Summary: Original and Refreshing
Review: A very enjoyable and inspiring quick read, this book is a series of vignettes culled from Ms. Goldberg's experiences as a writing teacher, writing therapist and real-life writer. Not as regimented as "The Artist's Way" by Cameron, "Bones" nevertheless kicks us in the pants and gets us writing proactively, with many helpful tools for getting started, overcoming blocks and integrating writing into our lifestyles. I enjoyed the sprinklings of Zen, Haiku, and stark real-life tableaux in the book, and applaud the author in her premise that freeing the mind from all preconceived notions, conventions, rules and self-criticism is the best way to get ideas flowing and the pen moving. I very highly recommend this book.

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Summary: Chatting With a Friend
Review: I purchased Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones for an Advanced Composition class. My first response after reading just a few pages was, "This is very easy reading." Goldberg's fluidity and conversational style made reading this book like chatting with a friend. She kindly offers suggestions, encouragement, and examples to assist writers of every level.

The book is generously sprinkled with anecdotes to give the reader insight into Goldberg's personal experience with writing. She informs the reader that with writing comes success and failure, and she has experienced both. The most important thing is to keep writing. "Just enter the heat of words and sounds and colored sensations and keep your pen moving across the page."

Writing Down the Bones has inspired me to pull that box out of the back of my closet that is filled with scraps of paper, cards, journals, and paper bags covered with random thoughts, poetry, short stories, and grocery lists. I have written down the bones. There are entire skeletons in my closet, the foundations of great works, just waiting for me to put some meat on them.

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Summary: Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones"
Review: Natalie Goldberg is absolutely brillant! From the beginning of this book through the end, it is jammed packed with essential information for the writer in you. Goldberg has written a reference book that will become a companion piece to all that read it. She mixes her writing expertise, with a heaping helping common sense. Overall, this book was helpful, insightful, and very easy to read. This book will greatly enhance your writing skills and abilities, whether you are a professional, or just a beginner like myself. Goldberg emphasizes throughout the entire book, that there is a writer buried deep in each one of us. All we need to do is follow Goldberg's lead and, "Just Write."

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Summary: Filled with great advice and .......
Review: .....much encouragement for beginning writers. Goldberg's primary piece of advice is to "keep your hand moving", i.e., let yourself keep writing and let your thoughts keep flowing. This exercise is crucial to removing the internal censor within that seeks to control what we attempt to write. It's this "going with the moment" and loss of control over our thoughts that Goldberg says will "free the writer within" as the book's title suggests.

And I agree with this basic premise and have found that it works in my own writing. Goldberg emphasizes how much of oneself a writer offers to his/her writing and it is clear that this self is not to be tapped without the effort of practice and letting your thoughts come through. Once the novice writer has this basic concept down, Goldberg offers helpful hints to actually improve the quality of the writing. She offers examples (often in the form of sharing her own personal experiences as a writer) of how to trust yourself as a writer, how to make your writing more detailed, how to show what you are trying to say (instead of merely telling), how to be specific, among numerous other tips.

I have read many books on writing technique and I believe that what Goldberg offers that many others don't is an acknowledgment that the meaningful events we seek to share and write about can be found deep within us. They merely must be appropriately tapped, which is attainable through some of the exercises she offers. This process gives writers the encouragement they need to actually initiate their writing and will form the basic foundation upon which the writing develops. I recommend this book particularly for those novice writers that have trouble "getting started".