Writing About Writing About Writing 27

Part 27 of an intermittent series where I read or re-read the writing books on my shelf to see if they’re worth keeping. See previous part here and Index of all books here.

And suddenly it’s December and there’s a bunch of books I’ve read but neglected to blog about…

Kae Tempest’s On Connection was a short book about suddenly not having an audience connection because of Covid. What’s a performance poet once performance is taken away? Interesting but ultimately only tangentially related.

Harold Evans is an editor and in ‘Do I make Myself Clear’ he talks, at length, about clarity in prose. OK I think but ultimately no new info in here – lots of examples but if you’ve read Orwell’s Politics and the English Language and your Gowers this is superfluous. If you haven’t then this may be worth a go.

Pretty decent go at explaining how to plot – picked this up in a charity shop, won’t keep it as although a good overview it offers nothing new – good for beginners.

The philosophy of writing and being a writer – Atwood is on good form here and I enjoyed this.

This is well-written and a decent overview of ten topics such as POV, Character, Theme, Dialogue etc – again great if you’ve not come across this info elsewhere, but it is the basics with only a small spin from the author.

Always enjoyed anything I’ve read by Swift and this was no exception. A mix of essays on all sorts of topics but many on writing and the writing life.

I might have time/inclination/energy to do a book wrap up post – but usually I find a ‘that was the year that was’ goes better in a new year – but the beginning of the year is usually busy as I have a birthday. So maybe I will, maybe I won’t.

What I am going to try though is to have a Year of Buying NO Books and a Climb Mount TBR challenge. Which I will blog about in January – and OK this will, no doubt, include a wrap up of this year and why I am taking this radical approach.

Drop a comment with your favourite writing book or tip here or email me via the Contact page. If you’re a publisher or Indie Author and would like me to review your writing book drop me a line!