The 7 Best Books On Writing
A huge help to me when writing my novel, “Beatrice Clover” was reading books about writing by other successful authors. They say that if you're not growing, you're regressing. If you’re not learning you’re stagnating. Sometimes when I was stuck in a rut these books lifted me out of it and got the creative juices flowing again.
The 7 Best Books On Writing
7.) Daily Rituals by Mason Currey
This isn’t your typical writing book It is a collection of anecdotes and biographical details of some of the world’s greatest artists and thinkers. It is not limited to writers. As someone who loves the process nearly as much as the final product I thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the different ways in which artists approached their craft and the creation of their greatest works. Among my favorite was reading about Patricia Highsmith’s (The Talented Mr. Ripely; Strangers on a Train) love of snails and how she wrote her books curled up in bed in a fetal position while chain smoking.
👉Daily Rituals: How Artists Work ~~~~~~~~~~~~> https://amzn.to/3Kx4Ob0
👉Audiobook Daily Rituals: How Artists Work ~~~~~~> https://amzn.to/3sWEaSA
6.) “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield
In my younger days….I somehow ended up in The Marine Corp. There is a myth that marine training turns baby faced recruits into blood thirsty killers….What it does teach is a lot more useful. The marine corp teaches you how to be miserable. This is invaluable for an artist. Marines love to be miserable. Marines derive a perverse satisfaction in having colder chow, crappier equipment, and higher casuality rates than any outfit of dogfaces, swab jockeys, or flyboys, all of whom they despise. Why? Because these candy asses don’t know how to be miserable. The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humilaition…..He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier of swabby or jet jockey. Because this is war, baby. And war is hell.
Pressfield is great as much for his advice as because of his attitude and mindset. If you were trapped on a desert island this is the book you want. Because not only would you end up writing a great novel, but Pressfield’s book and can-do attitude would likely get you off that island and back to civilization. The audio book read by the great George Guidall is pretty damn terrific.
👉The War of Art ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
https://amzn.to/3pP5Bfe
👉Audiobook The War of Art ~~~~~~~> https://amzn.to/3sWEvok
5. The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri
“Anyone who has a few strong convictions is a mine of premises.”
This is a book that Woody Allen refers to when he talks about his characters and how he develops them. It focuses on character motivations…the reasons characters do what they do. It can sometimes be a trickier read because Ergi references plays that are largely unknown to most contemporary readers. However, the lessons are still clear. Egri writes that authors creating a play need to know what elements go into these characters you are creating. He “vivisects” character in order to demonstrate what makes for not only well-drawn characters, but compelling drama stemming from the choices made by the characters, which ring true.
4. “How I Write” by Janet Evanovich
Practical advice about all aspects of traditional publishing by an author who has done and seen it all in her wildly successful career.
👉How I Write ~~~~~~~~~~~~> https://amzn.to/3CvlrAP
3. “Consider This” by Chuck Palanhiuk
When I was at AMC working with screenwriters pitching, writing, and developing their ideas for tv series, the way we used to talk about the shows we wanted to make sure they looked and felt cinematic but they had the depth and layers of a novel. This was different from most dramatic series television at the time which was still of the cop-doctor-lawyer trifecta the majority of which were formulaic. To accomplish this we engaged with these writers not in notes sessions, but in conversations. We had freeform discussions about their ideas, which gave these creators the confidence to tell a heavily serialized story over several years because they were able to discover the show they wanted to write before they ever had a writing staff or production team. This book feels like that. It reads like a discussion about writing with Palanhiuk embedding his best lessons and advice in the anecdotes. In that way it reads like a non-linear, fringe, version of King’s “On Writing” especially the memoir parts.
👉Consider This ~~~~~~~~~~~~> https://amzn.to/3pYhD6
2. “On Writing” by Stephen King
Quote from the book
Part rags-to-rich memoir, part toolbox filled with the decades worth of knowledge King has acquired about writing while conitnuously turning out bestsellers gobbled up by fans ever hungry for his work. A ton has been writte about this book, but it really can’t be overstated how good this book is.
👉On Writing ~~~~~~~~~~~> https://amzn.to/3t7fN4M
👉Audiobook On Writing ~~~~~~~~> https://amzn.to/3hPbDbx
1. Steinbeck’s “Working Days: The Journal of the Grapes of Wrath”
Steinbeck’s “Working Days: The Journal of the Grapes of Wrath”
The book is the log of progress Steinbeck kept as he wrote The Grapes of Wrath. The thing is it sounds pretentious but it’s the least pretentious writing book of all. Cause it’s just his diary. What’s so comforting is how normal and relatable it is. He berates and commiserates with himself for real and imagined faults. He cheers himself on and pats himself on the back. He bitches about noisy neighbors, loud noises in the house, he has stomach pains, he buys a new house, he has dinner with friends…and through it all he is writing. His journal was his warm up and where he laid out the days work. So there is incredible insight into his story and character development. But the best is still seeing that for a master like Steinbeck it could literally be, “yesterday was a great day!” To “today sucked” (paraphrasing of course). A fun way to read it it is to read the journals day by day while writing your own novel. The writing style is very staccato and he admits he only used the diary to get his daily writing flowing (he used to write letters for the same purpose) The whole thing is strangely illuminating and inspiring. This is the nuts and bolts way it feels to write a brilliant first draft... and in Steinbeck's case... the final draft.
👉Steinbeck “Working Days” ~~~~~~~~~~~~> https://amzn.to/3CpH8SM
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