Writing About Writing About Writing 33

Part 33 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.

Milford Science Fiction Writers have also been serialising this set of blog-posts, they’re good people, you should check them out.

Apparently the last of these was in May and I appear to not have read very many writing books since. I have however been involved with some writing projects (as discussed in the last one) – several submissions and counting. Also working on an editing job (as well as some copyediting for Wizard’s Tower and Solaris). And some publication news coming soon, I hope! So green shoots continue to be green (which is a miracle in this weather).

This time round there are only two books – On Writing by George V Higgins and Creative Demons (and How to Slay Them) by Richard Holman and Al Murphy.

I went to an event in Bath about Higgins, an interesting author who wrote one of my favourite books of the last few years – The Friends of Eddie Coyle. When the presenter mentioned this book I had to, of course, purchase a copy. This was very much in the vein of “I have some opinions about this and I’m going to expound on them.” Rather than a ‘How to’ as such. It’s also got long excerpts (sometimes half a chapter) of writing Higgins believes is of such outstanding quality he hardly needs to explain what it demonstrates. He also says you must never be friends with editors.

He seemed a bit of a larger than life type of character and very much wrote for money. Overall an entertaining read (I admit to skipping a lot of the excerpts) but not one I learned a great deal from – and so to the discard pile it goes.

With Creative Demons I feel like I once again expected THE answer as to why I am struggling to return to the levels of productivity I once had when writing. I mean of course I *think* I know why (perfectionism and fear) but not how to get back on the horse (apart from the obvious – make shitty first drafts and stop end-gaining) But you know, I mean the MAGICAL answer that doesn’t involve facing the fear and doing it anyway. So, this is a neat book with nice illustrations and it was worth reading but my expectations weren’t met… I also read the ebook so no need to discard as it’s not taking up shelf space so doesn’t fit the criteria really. But it was the only other writing book I read so it’s going in, dammit!

Anyway – I’m still searching for that answer, which is probably why I’ve been shunted into the ‘Books about Creativity’ tangent. Of which I have a dozen or so books, and will be reading those until I get distracted.

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!