My Favorite Writing Books

A wise woman once told me, sometimes you eat the bear. Sometimes, the bear eats you.

This week, I am being eaten, bite by scrumptious bite, by the bear. So please forgive this rather truncated post.

Earlier this week I was asked what my favorite writing books are. I have several, books that influenced me, books that I read over and over, books I think are vital to the writer's process, and to the craft itself. Here are some of my favorites: (click on the link for more suggestions)

On Writing - Stephen King

The gold standard. When I'm approached by writers who are just getting their start, this is the book I send them to first. I tell them, if it speaks to you, you're a writer. If it doesn't, you may want to think about another path. I didn't read this until 2006, and it was like lightning struck my brain.

Write Away - Elizabeth George

Should the previous book speak to you, this is the next on the list. A perfect nuts to bolts book that gives tips on everything from building story to defining characters and outlining. 

Forest For The Trees - Betsy Lerner

The first writing book I ever read. It changed me in many ways, and showed me the path that I eventually found myself on. Well worth it.

The War of Art – Steven Pressfield

This one is for anyone who wants to be a creative - for that matter, anyone with dreams unfulfilled should read Pressfield's little gem. You hear me talk about resistance a lot. Here's the book I got that from. It's a hugely important book, and one I strongly recommend.

P.S. You will see a consistent path from here on out. Interestingly, books about craft aren't as important to me as books about process.

The Creative Habit – Twyla Tharp

I loved this one from dancer/choreographer Twyla Tharp. It's a great book about creating good habits, organization, and other lovely bits. Some of it I already did, and some I added into my routine. Most important rule of all - build your habits, then stick to them.

Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott

The definitive guide to the writing life, by a woman who's both acerbically funny and poignantly truthful. 

Hamlet's Blackberry - William Powers

A superb book about the history of communication and the ways modern technologies change the world. Also awesome for its tips on ways to unplug from the grid. My favorite of all the productivity books I've read.

The Artist's Way - Julia Cameron 

A little honesty for you. Once the excitement of the debut year is over and the reality of being a working writer sets in, that's when the voices start. External and internal, from reviews and reader emails to editor and agent inputs, everything starts changing. Sales goes up and down, proposals are loved and changed, or hated and revamped. The vacuum we start in, writing a little book in our spare time, mostly for ourselves, to see if we can do it, suddenly turns into the machine that controls your life. it's very easy to get thrown off track when things aren't going perfectly. And this is publishing, folks. Trust me when I say, things NEVER go perfectly. For anyone. So when the going gets tough, the tough do THE ARTIST'S WAY. It changed my world, and I'm sure it will change yours too. But it doesn't work unless you're at a certain point. Heck, it doesn't even apply until you're at a certain point. 

The Writer's Journey - Christopher Vogler

I shouldn't call this one of my favorites, because truth be told, I hated it. I've always just written from my gut, and didn't realize that I was following a pattern that had been developed practically since the first people got together under the stars and told tales of their day chasing mastodons. I adore mythology, and somewhere along the way I think I got a sense of story from that. But realizing it wasn't my own method ticked me off royally, and then I started thinking in Vogler's terms, and suddenly, everything was about the three acts, and the Hero's Journey, and it wrecked me for a couple of years. So don't read it. (But if you do, it's a fantastic journey, and it will help you identify the areas of your story that might be sagging. But you'll never watch a movie the same way again. So you've been warned.)

That should be enough to get you started.

Want to share some of your favorites in the comments? I'd love to hear what you like, too!

Best Links of the Week

Settle in, because there are lots of great links to read this week, starting with what's possibly the most important advice for writers wanting to get published:

Writer Unboxed » The Biggest Mistake Writers Make and How to Avoid it  ("Writing is taught everywhere, but not story.")

And we all have these moments, when it just doesn't work. I Hate It — But I Wrote It | Writerly Life 

On The Kill Zone, James Scott Bell tackles A Writer's Ego, which is absolutely excellent. 

From Information Diet, some truth - Notifications are evil  I have all my notifications turned off. Why be a slave to them? Which ties right into the next wonderful observation, Today's Technologies Need an Off-the-Hook Option  The new iOS6 operating system on my phone has a Do Not Disturb option which can be tailored however I need it. If I could only do this with my home phone....

My friend Barbara Claypole White blogs about OCD and Believable Characters. Her new book, THE UNFINISHED GARDEN, is wonderful.

Author Bryan Hall writes a very provocative, and pretty darn true essay on The Lazy Writer 

In the age of Facebook, how do you keep you manage to stay friends with people you don't agree with politically? How to Use Mindfulness to Keep Your Friends During the Election  I loved this - and it applies to much more than just politics

This essay cracked me up and made me sd at the same time. Just Freaking Call Me It's so true, too - 20 minutes of texting can be eliminated if you'd just pick up the phone! It's good to see that our texting generation is realizing that phones do work. ERMEGERD!

And from the super cool category: Far From ‘Junk,’ DNA Dark Matter Proves Crucial to Health Can you imagine - all that DNA junk they thought didn't matter, does. Pretty soon they'll figure out why we need a spleen.

"What Is Your Biggest Shame?" And Other Character Tricks

One of the hardest aspects of writing is building deep, complex, believable characters. Characters with meat on their psychic bones, who you care about, root for, cry with. Characters who have relatable issues but rise above - or sink under the surface and are mourned. One-dimensionality is something to be strictly avoided whenever possible with any character, regardless of their place in your story. But for your heroes and heroines, they need even more.

So how do you write these kinds of characters? The ones readers chomp at the bit to find out more about?

Years ago, one of my writer buddies, the divine Jennifer Brooks, came up with a brilliant solution to this quandary. She was writing a book with an omniscient POV and several main characters. The BMW’s (my critique group) were having trouble keeping all of them straight, and we badgered her to do something about our inability to “get” who was who. (Many times, POV problems are a result of not knowing your characters as well as you should. If you know exactly how your character will react in a certain situation, what they’ll say, how they’ll feel, your POV will fall into place.)

Have you ever been sent an email survey by one of your friends, the kind that has a huge list of questions that either you or said friend must fill out? They ask detailed questions that are meant to show how much you really know someone. My friend, in all her brilliant glory, decided to fill out the survey as her characters. Since many of her characters were in relationships or strong friendships, she allowed the characters themselves to ask the questions of their friends and lovers. It gave her a stronger grasp of who each character is and how they could be presented in the story to help us, the readers, keep them straight. It worked wonderfully. The characters came alive for her readers. And, I daresay, for the author herself.

I've used this trick several times in the past, and I know with the internet this advice has circulated a lot. But just the other day, another divine writer, Paige Crutcher, asked about getting deeper into a character, and I suggested this method. She found the Proust interview and sent it along, which I've included here. It's as good a kickoff point as any I've seen to get into your character's head. 

Just FYI, this is a bastardized version of the Proust Questionnaire. Here's a link to the story behind this, and the original interview, too. 

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

What is your current state of mind?

What is your favorite occupation?

What is your most treasured possession?

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

What is your favorite journey?

What is your most marked characteristic?

When and where were you the happiest?

What is it that you most dislike?

What is your greatest fear?

What is your greatest extravagance?

Which living person do you most despise?

What is your greatest regret?

Which talent would you most like to have?

Where would you like to live?

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

What is the quality you most like in a man?

What is the quality you most like in a woman?

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

What do you most value in your friends?

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?

Whose are your heroes in real life?

Which living person do you most admire?

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

On what occasions do you lie?

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

What are your favorite names?

How would you like to die?

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be? 

What is your motto? 

I posit that this list is missing one of the biggest, most important, juiciest character building questions of all time, so I will add it here.

What is your biggest shame? What is the one thing you hide from everyone, even, sometimes, yourself?

Know that, and you will know your character's true nature, and their heart.

And just to explain the picture above, my all-time favorite meaty character is the one and only Heathcliff. I know, I know, but I am a sucker for the Byronic hero.

Who is your favorite meaty character? And if you have tips or tricks for building them, feel free to add them in the comments.

Best Links of the Week

The Business Rusch: A Warning To All Writers Who Need Help Indie Publishing  (hire 52Novels or @BrettBattles instead)

How 'Fifty Shades of Grey' Dominated Publishing - Peter Osnos - The Atlantic (there are exceptions to every rule in social media)

There’s Something About Gillian Flynn (or, When There’s More to Genre Than Meets the Eye) BOOK RIOT (Hits the nail on the head - especially about how women are supposed to be cool girls for their mates...)

3 Tips for Writing When Life is Chaotic and Crazy - Author, Jody Hedlund (Super, especially as we're all settling back into our school/work fall routines)

Author, Jody Hedlund: How to Prepare For a Book Launch (Good stuff here...)

And for something totally fun - Alternate Histories: 7 Ways the World Could Be Completely Different - Mental Floss (So cool - love futurists)

Are You Really A Writer?

We are our own worst enemies when it comes to taking ourselves seriously.

We want to be writers. We want to share with people that we're writers. We want to sell a gazillion copies of our books and be lauded for our efforts. But when it comes down to it, to that butt in chair, time to get to work, we ... fall away.

Ooh, look at that! Shiny objects! Magpies! RSS Feeds! So many people out there saying so many things and I might miss something if I don't pay attention to everything all at once and what happens if I really try this and what if no one likes it is that a reflection on me do they hate me why won't anyone take me seriously I better go eat some worms.

Yeah. The writer's mind is an ugly place sometimes. We writers are damn good at finding ways to talk ourselves OUT of success.

So I'll say it again. No one will take you seriously if you don't take yourself seriously.

I read this great essay last week on the Writerly Life blog called Be Proud of Your Writing. It's about the bizarre self-deprecation we do when we share about out art. We talk around it, like our passion for it is a bad thing. But without passion, what else do we have? Passion equals drive equals success.

I think the difference between the one-offs and the glory seekers and real writers is our unique brand of passion. For literature. For books and bookstores and readers. For creativity. For living on the soul-sucking edge of the pit of despair and dancing with fairies on the tips of the Himalayas - which is basically how we spend all of our days, teetering between the two. For the words, man. The words.

I've been on a Hemingway kick lately, and one thing you can NEVER accuse that man of is lacking passion. He lived for his words. His words made his life bearable. Even through the alcohol and the women and the eventual pain that chased him into the grave, the words were what made him complete. And tore him apart.

Done by twelve, drunk by three.

It might not be healthy, but it's a schedule. Find a schedule, and stick to it, no matter what. Schedules become habits. Habits create consistent output. And consistent output allows you to have a successful career. No one can buy your brilliant novel if you don't sit down and write the thing.

I realize this is sort of two topics in one - but I think the two issues are inextricably linked. Passion in and of itself isn't enough. You have to have skills too. And skills are born of good, healthy habits, habits that include believing in your work. Believeing in yourself. Not allowing the brown noise that oozes through the internet to leak into your delicate ears. Tune it out. Tune out the naysayers, and the shouters and the chestbeaters. Don't let them influence you. Write for you, not for the market. Write what you're passionate about. Do it well, and it will find a home.

The next time you catch that urge to demean your writing, or your writing life, or distract yourself because you're scared, stop. Remember the passion that drove you to write in the first place. Embrace it. Give thanks for it. Take it out for dinner. Maybe even buy it a new pair of shoes. Never, ever, EVER, put yourself and your writing down.

Because if you don't take yourself seriously, then who will?