3 secrets to great writing, 5 books that get you there

Tobe a strong writer there are three things one must do. One, write every day andwith great avidity. Two, read great writing of all kinds. Three, read greatbooks about writing. This blog post is about the latter. Here we will reviewfive of the best writing books on the market. Let them inspire you and bringforth the creativity you sense is latent within you and seemingly inaccessible

Ifyou want to be a strong writer there are three things one must do.

One,write every day and do so with great avidity.

Two,read great writing of all kinds.

Three,read great books about writing by expert writers.

Thisarticle will focus on the latter. Books about how to write are legion, largelybecause there are so many people interested in writing and hungry for materialabout the craft. But good books about writing are few and far between. Iveread a ton of them, but only a few have passed muster. So lets review aselection of the writing books Id recommend for both aspiring and accomplishedwriters.

BeforeI begin, lets view this information through the proper prism. The purpose ofreading books about writing is to keep oneself inspired and to refine the craft,to keep making us better at what we do. We are never too experienced to learnmore. With that in mind, heres my all-star lineup minus the very good butinterminably mentioned On Writing WellbyWilliam Zinsser and The Elements of StylebyWilliam Strunk and E.B. White.

Bird by BirdbyAnne Lamott.Funny, practical and irreverent, Lamott hammers home a point that all writersgrapple with your first draft is going to be junk (though she uses a moredescriptive term), so just get over it. In fact, the best writers in the worldwrite lousy first drafts. That is the writing process. Once we accept that evenDon DeLillo and Toni Morrison write lousy first drafts and we inevitably willdo the same, the game changes quite dramatically. Just sit down and write anddont sweat the outcome. Create the raw materials. The editing andremanufacturing comes later. Lamott is filled with lots of good advice relatedto this core message. Check it out and watch your writing improve as you learnto concentrate on the process rather than the immediate output.

The War ofArtby Steven Pressfield(not to be confused with the Art of War, though obviously a play onthat famous title). Pressfields book is about all artistic endeavors, thoughwriting is central to his message, if for no other reason than Pressfield ishimself an accomplished novelist with TheLegend of Bagger Vanceto his credit, among many other books.Resistance isThe War of Artsvillain. Every time we eventhink about doing something artistic Resistance rears it debilitating head inits many manifestations. It might be an unexpected wave of fatigue, or a suddenrealization that we have house work or yard work to do. A telephone call wesimply cannot put off any longer.Anythingto avoid facing theblank page or music sheet. Given that, procrastination is the most commonmanifestation of Resistance. The dynamics change once we recognize andacknowledge Resistance. We have more control over this metaphysical interloper.Then we can take a different approach. As Pressfield puts it in theWarof Art:

Mostof us have two lives. The life we live and the unlived life within us. Betweenthe two stands Resistance. Resistance will tell you anything to keep you fromdoing your work.

Hereshow Pressfield describes his own writing process in The War of Art: I sit down and plunge in. When I start makingtypos, I know Im getting tired. Thats four hours or so. Ive hit the point ofdiminishing returns. I wrap for the day. How many pages have I produced? Idont care. Are they any good? I dont even think about it. All that matters isIve put in my time and hit it with all Ive got. All that counts is that, forthis day, for this session. I have overcome Resistance.

Onemore point from Pressfield. He rightly points out that the difference betweenwriters and wannabe writers is that writers understand that overcomingResistance and sitting down to write is actually harder than the writingitself. The battle to begin is the biggest battle of all.

The ArtistsWayby Julia Cameron. A prolific writer herself and the author of numerousbooks on writing, Cameron teachers a technique called The Morning Pages thatinvolves sitting down first thing each morning and write without stopping untilyouve filled three pages with content. Fill those pages with anything thatcomes to mind, regardless of how trivial or self-obsessed. As Cameron says, youcannot do the Morning Pages wrong. Do this every morning and some magical thingsstart happening. You might discover personal insights. You might havepsychological breakthroughs. From a writing standpoint you will train yourselfto set the internal editor aside and simply write without regard to the qualityof what youre producing. Then, when you do your writing for publication,youre more apt to let it flow without the tyranny of an internal editorcasting aspersions on your ever word choice and sentence construction. Havingopened the gates the subconscious mind the fountainhead of creativity canbegin to assert itself.

If You Want toWriteby Brenda Ueland. As the subtitle says, this is a book about art,independence and spirit. Ueland encourages us to be reckless when we write. Bea pirate, she says. Be a lion. We have that luxury because no real harm comesfrom writing regardless of how recklessly we produce it. She starts severalchapters by quoting the great poet William Blake, in one case using thissearing Blake quote: Sooner strangle an infant in its cradle than nurseunacted desires. Clearly, Ueland was an adrenal writer, one who treated thewriting process like a moth treats a flame.

InIf You Want to Write Ueland says: Ikept a slovenly, headlong, helter-skelter diary for many years. This is what ithas done for me: It has shown me that writing is talking, thinking on paper.And the more impulsive and immediate the writing the closer it is to thethinking, which it should be. It has made me like writing. For years it was themost boring, dreaded, and effortful thing to dodoubt-impeded, ego-inflated.

Givethe woman a cutlass and steed and everything about her writing changed.Attitude and perspective are everything when it comes to writing.

How to Write a DamnGood Novelby James Frey. Never mind that you have no desire to writea novel. Never mind that you never pen fiction. This book teaches good writing,period. Its principles are applicable to many types of writing because itteaches:

>> Theme

>> Character development

>> The three rules of dramatic writing

>> The ABCs of storytelling

>> Point of view

>> The fine art of sensuous and dramatic prose

Freysinstruction is lean, straightforward and practical. He accomplishes more injust 172 pages than most writing books accomplish in three times the space. Hewrites with force and economy.

Thereare many more terrific writing books, many of which Im sure Ive never comeacross. But these five are exceptional. Let them inspire you and bring forththe creativity you sense is latent within you and seemingly inaccessible.