irenapasvinter

An invaluable read if you are interested in writing. The book is compiled of monthly columns the author wrote for the Writer's Digest in 80s. At first I was afraid it would be an assemblage of dated and fragmented writing advice. Nothing of the sort -- it's a treasure trove of nuts and bolts of writing, and especially of guts of writing, aka what writing fiction really is about, problems, obstacles and dilemmas writers are faced with ("guts" metaphor belongs to the author himself). Though there are plenty of references to typewriters, printed pages and researching in the library and zero mention of Internet and computers, this only serves to demonstrate how easier technicalities of writing had become, allowing to concentrate on the writing itself. And this book may be a great help and inspiration for this purpose. I suppose Lawrence Block's other books on writing "Telling Lies for Fun and Profit" and "From Plot to Print" are even better, or are at least equally good. I'm definitely going to read them too. I've started from this particular book because I had it as on audio -- and what better opportunity could there be for reading than in a traffic jam.