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Summary: A triumph! Very inspirational
Review: This is perhaps one of the most helpful books on writing I've ever read. Natalie Goldberg is part guru, part therapist, part best friend. I highly recommend this book to anyone who writes for a living, wishes they wrote for a living and especially for anyone who's convinced they can't ever write for a living. She'll remind you what you love so much about the written word and reawaken your enthusiasm for literature. Best of all she'll encourage you all the way!
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Summary: free your mind
Review: Outstandingly creative book on the art of writing authentically and imaginatively. Spiced with humor, questions, experiments, and even a bit of Zen (the author is a Buddhist). Highly recommended.
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Summary: Big surprise in a pocket book...
Review: When you start out writing, you get this idea that there's a magic potion or some secret understanding that a Vonnegut or Mallon have to be able to write. You maybe get other books that "show you how to write" and get bogged down in a set of rules only to get frustrated and search for another book of rules. This book, although shocking in it's miniature pocket-book size, is the anti-rulebook for writers. So what immeasurably valuable idea did I walk away from this book with? The idea that writing's like anything else you want to be good at... practice.I didn't like the splatterings of eastern mysticism in it, but the points work even without them. If you want to find your courage and, thusly, your voice in your writing - you should definitely read through this book and maybe toss out a couple of those overpriced compendiums on how to write collecting dust on your shelf.
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Summary: Writing Down the Bones
Review: Just finished reading the book and I have begun to write as of yesterday in this purple notebook with a kitty on the front. You just couldn't write anything bad in a purple kitty notebook! Ms. Goldberg's work was encouraging and enlightening, a very personal mini course in writing. This is a book you will want to share with your friends so buy them a copy for a birthday present, as you won't want to be without yours! Filled with information and ideas on how to approach writing it will help you deal with the various phobias as they arise along your writing path. She challenges you to make time in your life to write, to think and to become one with the written word in a Zen fashion. It is the most helpful book I have read on the subject of writing. Thank you Natalie, you are an inspiration, I hope someday to be able to go to a workshop that you teach!
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Summary: A classic I return to again and again
Review: My parents gave me a copy of this book when I was 12 years old and I hated it. I hated every word in it. I began writing as soon as I could pick up a pen, but I was still too unfocused as a writer and more interested in fantasies than in writing down the truth. I picked it up again on a whim when I was 20, and fell madly in love. Natalie writes with such honesty and simplicity that I am inspired to write (almost) every day. She doesn't give you rules, she doesn't tell you *how* to write (which is why I hated it when I was 12) like so many hack writing instructors do. If you need someone to tell you how to develop plots and characters, if you want a step-by-step formula for churning out stories, then this is not the book for you. But if you trust your voice, or if you want to learn how to trust it, then this is the best book I can recommend.
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Summary: Bone Marrow
Review: One of my personal fantasies is to get to the root of the thing, the feeling, the person. I like to know something from the inside out, to the marrow of the bone. As a psychoanalyst it's my job to know myself this way, and to help others learn about themselves this deeply too. Natalie Goldberg's deeply felt and honest writing helps you do the same.
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Summary: Playful writing
Review: You can open and start reading Writing Down the Bones anywhere and that's what I really like about this book. Since I don't have anyone to discuss writing with I found it to be a great companion. I have got some good pieces of advice that really helped me to become a more playful and adventurous writer. Instead of making up whole stories I now concentrate much more on short exercises that can be useful later on. I recommend Writing Down the Bones to anyone who is fed up with rules and who needs a friend when writing.
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Summary: Thought-provoking, Creative motivation
Review: This book was the key to getting me over the "I can't do it, it's too late to become a writer" obstacle. I read it cover to cover, but I can imagine picking it up every few weeks to read a chapter to get me re-focused on writing.
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Summary: Psychobabble Mamma!
Review: This book is good for a very specific and narrow purpose: IF you are a newly-hatched, fuzzy writerling, and IF you are seriously low on self-esteem and confidence, and (most importantly) IF you are a fan of unfocused, vaguely New-Agey spirituality and guru-isms as a substitute for actual information, then this book will be greatly helpful to you. Otherwise, give it a miss and spend your self-esteem money on a nice new pen and some chocolates.
Rating:
Summary: One important message
Review: This book gave me one important message; if you write, you are a writer. Being a writer is not about being published but rather being the kind of person that makes sense of the world around them through writing. Goldberg reinforces the classic writers guidelines ie. commitment to writing, being free with yourself, not letting the pen stop etc. However, I had difficulty with Goldberg's voice in the text; she seems to be a trendy, flightly, new-ager and not the kind of person I'd like to spend time with. But hey, like she says, "we are not our work".
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