Thunder and Lightning : Cracking Open the Writer's Craft

Rating:
Summary: Worthwhle read
Review: I have read one other of Natalie's books and at one point during that first book, I was a bit put off by the journal-style, flow-of-consciousness writing. At the time, I was searching for a quick fix or perhaps I just wanted nuts-and-bolts direction. And sometimes, encountering a lot of chatter over a writer's psyche, I do want to say, "Oh what's with all the melodrama? Just tell the wanna-be that they need to be damned good story-tellers and be done with it!"
But then, Natalie Goldberg practices Zen meditation. She grew up in the 60s, too, a time when inner musings were given their due in the public forum of Hippie-dom. And if you know anything about Eastern philosophies, you should at least garner that patience is a virtue and that you are not reading Strunk and White.
Anyway, after a chapter or two, Natalie began to discuss exactly the problem I was having with my novel, a problem I'd just begun to point out to myself but still wasn't quite sure what it entailed. And then Natalie described herself in the same place at one time. Problem: stalling in one's story because the writer is trying too damned hard to control the characters, who they are, etc. It helped, exceedingly, to learn her explanation for it.
The same thing occurred in the next chapter, and the next.
I've read many how-to writing books over the years ( you can put off writing indefinitely so long as you got something to read) and that I came across this book at this time could be deemed one of those little coincidences. These may have been some obscure how-to questions; not every writer may ask and another author might have brushed past them.
So don't knock the Zen. When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

Rating:
Summary: Cracking open one writer's life, perhaps...
Review: I really loved Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind, and I like this newest Natalie Goldberg book, too. But something's changed, and the subtitle her publishers have used ("Cracking Open the Writer's Craft") is misleading, to say the least.

One of my favourite things about Goldberg's writing, especially in Writing Down the Bones, was the way she -- unlike most authors on writing -- refused to either mince or waste words.

In that book, her approach to each chapter was one of "get in, make your point, get out." When you take a Flintstones vitamin, it doesn't matter if you get Wilma or Barney, or orange or purple -- you're still getting all the vitamins and minerals you need. Same thing with Writing Down the Bones. Crack it open at any point, read any chapter, and you'll still come away immeasurably enriched.

Don't get me wrong -- I still enjoy Goldberg's writing. But I don't get that "enriched" feeling from Thunder and Lightning. She doesn't really spend as much time on "the writer's craft" as she does on her often rambling reminiscences.

If you're interested in the journey of one particular writer, this is an excellent book. But it shouldn't be billed as a book on craft. For that, there are better books out there, perhaps foremost among them Goldberg's own earlier work.

Rating:
Summary: "It's really about life."
Review: Natalie Goldberg has published one novel, a book of poems, and half a dozen books about writing. Is she case of "those who can't do, teach?" I wondered myself, until I listened to audiotapes of this book on a long cross-country drive. Once I got past the author's accent, which deterred even this ex-New Yorker, I found sparkling gems of wisdom that shone more brightly on a second read-around. The hardcover edition was even better.

Like all Goldberg's nonfiction, this book is a series of short essays and memoirs, which can be read randomly, but I recommend taking the chapters in order. Goldberg begins by throwing cold water on a dream. Writing won't bring you a living, a solution to life's problems, a bowl of raspberries. Writing is, after all, just writing.

Natalie herself was not an overnight success. The author's mother encouraged her to get a teaching credential because "you can write in the summers." Young Natalie taught elementary school, worked in a restaurant, and briefly ran a catering business. At twenty-six she discovered zen practice, which transformed her life and literally gave shape to her writing. After thirteen years of "writing practice," she published her first book, a small-press release that became an unlikely best-seller.
Thunder and Lightning offers wonderful glimpses of Goldberg's famous writing workshops as well as the way she wrote her one novel, Banana Rose. Anyone who has tried to create can understand the need for a practice, getting past a "block" and taking criticism in stride. You have to find a way to go on and if you do, the work takes on a life of its own.
As Goldberg says, in perhaps the most important insight of this book, readers are fascinated by process. Books about writing often out-sell the products of writing -- novels and poems. And that is why her own books are so successful.

Thunder and Lightning is the real deal. Zen practice gives the author a genuine spiritual foundation, not a cosmetic cover-up. In writing about writing she touches on careers, vocation, family, opening up the self to growth. In the end, Thunder and Lightning is not about writing. It's about life.