Some of the best books written about writing...

I'm one of those kinds of people that, when I am passionate about something, I get a little obsessed. Example? When I was 12, the movie Titanic came out. Oh boy. I went nuts. I memorized facts about the ship. I nearly killed our laser printer collecting pictures I'd found online. I knew random facts about the movie, the cast, all of it. I stopped counting when I had watched the entire movie, both VHS tapes (cuz that's how we rolled in 1997) 50 times. No, that is not a typo. I could probably still quote the movie word for word. More than ten years later.

So that should give you a window into my obsession. I've since abandoned the Titanic obsession and moved on. I know, right? How could I? Well, it happened.

Writing is my Titanic now. I think about it all the time. I love talking shop, whether people are listening or not. This is why I tweet so much. So I thought I'd share a few of my favorite books about writing. Because you can't set down to write without learning how.

ON WRITING by Stephen King. I read this when I was in college, and have re-read it two or three times since. The crazy thing is that I've never read any of Steve's stuff (I can call him Steve because we went to the same University, worked at the same college newspaper and he and my mother graduated the same year), but this is just a good book about writing. Not everything in it can be taken for gospel, but nothing ever should be. He has so many good tips for starting to write and staying motivated.








BIRD BY BIRD by Anne Lamott. While some take this book as gospel, I don't so much. She makes writing sound like such drudgery. And she also seems like the kind of person who slaves away for years on one book. I feel a lot of the writing guides advocate this slow writing. I'm not a slow writer. I don't have a problem with writing a first draft in two weeks and then revising it for a few months. I can't do a book a year. I have too many ideas in my head that need to get out that I'd go stark raving mad. But still, it's another good book about what it takes to be a writer. How to start and how to stay writing.












THE FOREST FOR THE TREES by Betsy Lerner. This book changed my life. I found it at my local library one summer when I was struggling with my writing. In one chapter, she talks about how even when you're not sitting down and banging words out on a keyboard, you're writing. You make up stories in your head or you re-imagine scenarios or you write letters. This means you are a writer. You are writing, you just don't know it. Ding, ding, ding! I had my Aha moment. I was a writer. I could no sooner change it than I could make myself taller. I was a writer, so I might as well be writing. The floodgates opened and soon I had so many book ideas I couldn't keep up. Some of them are still waiting their turn to be written. This book gave me the permission I needed to be a writer. Not that I really needed it. I was a writer all along.


These are just three of the goodies. I'll probably post more later as I think of them. Also, I need to do that formatting post. That sounds like a barrel of fun, doesn't it? But if I can help one other person not tear their hair out formatting an ebook, then I'll be happy.