I’m liking this book more and more as it gets into the nuts and bolts of the writing life. Here is a quote I especially liked:
“Once I have an outline that goes all the way through, I’ll start getting anxious and ready to start. But I try to delay the writing as long as I possibly can because the more you solve before you start writing, the easier it is to have that free and automatic writing experience …” [Nicholas Kazan, page 53]
I’m a sucker for descriptions of working environments, and this one is the most ideal I’ve every heard of:
I have a zero-gravity chair, so I write completely relaxed in an almost horizontal position. My chair is positioned so that when I look out the window I can see down a canyon to the ocean. I write directly into a laptop computer that sits on a portable desk positioned perfectly over me. [Amy Holden Jones, page 58]
Heaven, eh?
Susanne, I love that “snapshot”!
Stace, I’m going to be saying more about the book in my blogs, but basically, yes, it’s worthwhile. It’s a book you can dip into, and take what you need.
Do you find that there is enough advice on the nuts and bolts of writing to make it worth your time, working in a different genre as you do? I thought about this one, but wasn’t sure it had enough useful meat for a novelist or short story author.
Ah yes. I write on my chaise, two windows behind me overlooking New York Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, so I can crane my neck and look out whenever a particularly loud siren interrupts my concentration early in the morning or at night. But mostly I look into my living room, at the pleasant chaos of lots of books on shelves, furniture with cushions, and an HDTV waiting to distract me from writing after I’ve gotten home from my day job and just want to erase it from my mind.
Could be worse! :)