A practical and inspirational guide created for people living in the real world. Whether you're a seasoned writer or new to the page, The Writer's Block Myth holds the keys to get past stuck, complete your goals, feed your creative Soul, and help you experience lasting creative freedom.The voices and stories of other writers are woven throughout the book, plus short, easy exercises & tools to support your process. The Writer's Block Myth is a culmination of hundreds of hours of conversations and work with writers, artists, and creatives, as well as interview-conversations conducted with writers of all levels, interests, and experience.Put it on your desk, kitchen counter, or bedside table. Carry it in your bag. This is one to refer to often.
A practical and inspirational guide created for people living in the real world. Whether you're a seasoned writer or new to the page, The Writer's Block Myth holds the keys to get past stuck, complete your goals, feed your creative Soul, and help you experience lasting creative freedom.
“Writing is spooky,” according to Norman Mailer. “There is no routine of an office to keep you going, only the blank page each morning, and you never know where your words are coming from, those divine words.” In The Spooky Art, Mailer discusses with signature candor the rewards and trials of the writing life, and recommends the tools to navigate it. Addressing the reader in a conversational tone, he draws on the best of more than fifty years of his own criticism, advice, and detailed observations about the writer’s craft. Praise for The Spooky Art “The Spooky Art shows Mailer’s brave willingness to take on demanding forms and daunting issues. . . . He has been a thoughtful and stylish witness to the best and worst of the American century.”—The Boston Globe “At his best—as artists should be judged—Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure. There is enough of his best in this book for it to be welcomed with gratitude.”—The Washington Post “[The Spooky Art] should nourish and inform—as well as entertain—almost any serious reader of the novel.”—Baltimore Sun “The richest book ever written about the writer’s subconscious.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer “Striking . . . entrancingly frank.”—Entertainment Weekly Praise for Norman Mailer “[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation.”—The New York Times “A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent.”—The New Yorker “A devastatingly alive and original creative mind.”—Life “Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance.”—The New York Review of Books “The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book.”—Chicago Tribune “Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream.”—The Cincinnati Post
Ignite Your Writing Brain! Whether you're an experienced writer or just starting out, an endless number of pitfalls can trip up your efforts, from procrastination and writer's block to thin characters and uninspired plots. Luckily, you have access to an extraordinary writing tool that can help overcome all of these problems: your brain. Fire Up Your Writing Brain teaches you how to develop your brain to its fullest potential. Based on proven, easy-to-understand neuroscience, this book details ways to stimulate, nurture, and hone your brain into the ultimate writing tool. Inside, you'll learn how to: • Identify the type of writer you are: Do you think or feel your way through writing a book? Are you a pantser or a plotter? • Develop writing models that accelerate your learning curve. • Hardwire your brain for endurance and increased productivity. • Brainstorm better character concepts and plot points. • Learn to edit your manuscript on both a macro and micro level. • Recharge a lagging brain to gain an extra burst of creativity. Filled with accessible instruction, practical techniques, and thought-provoking exercises, Fire Up Your Writing Brain shows you how to become a more productive, creative, and successful writer--a veritable writing genius! "An excellent resource--the way that neuroscience and the art of writing are jointly explored allows for a new, unique, and practical integration of the two." --Teresa Aubele-Futch, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame and co-author of Train Your Brain to Get Happy and Train Your Brain to Get Rich "Full of neuroscience facts and tips, this inspiring book will change your brain--and your writing life. I learned techniques that I'll apply to my students and my own writing." --Linda Joy Myers, President of the National Association of Memoir Writers and award-winning author of Don't Call Me Mother: A Daughter's Journey from Abandonment to Forgiveness
The Myth of Writer's Block takes the prominent postwar cultural myth of the "blocked" writer and reexamines it as an objective historical phenomenon. Modern literary texts often emerge from psychological crises, or seek to capture fictional crises, but once a writer's reputation is marked by a block myth--a negative formulation that a writer has somehow failed to live up to popular or critical standards of production--literary and philosophical problems can take on the appearance of psychological calamity. Block myths take flight because they are marketable; an established author's work increases in cultural value when it is perceived to be scarce. Such myths rarely represent reality, however, and most American authors who are perceived to have encountered a significant block, including Joseph Mitchell, Henry Roth, and Ralph Ellison, published a considerable amount of influential work in their lifetimes. These writers moreover shared an uncanny interest in documenting precarious matters of social and political morality, often disregarding conventions of craft and narrative coherence. This is no thematic coincidence. While all of these writers struggled independently through personal and intellectual crises, explaining the complex works they produced as specimens of mounting, monolithic block evades the unresolved moral questions--especially of race, ethnicity, class, and progress--they each confronted, however incompletely, in boldly realistic fictions and other accounts. A block myth represents a transfer of the burden of social and political morality from society to the individual writer in crisis. This study identifies this phenomenon as a modern critical problem, resists it where necessary, and documents the specific American moral emergencies that block myths conceal. Part One tracks the history of block as a philosophical placeholder, tracing the concept in American literary history from William James's The Principles of Psychology (1890) through the midcentury psychoanalytic vogue and the rise of psychological realism as a dominant genre. Part Two provides a series of case studies or production profiles of three writers who have supposedly been blocked, Mitchell, Roth, and Ellison, examining how block myths frequently conceal or evade morally realistic literary gestures.
Carrying baggage you don't need? When I was in college, I figured my life would come together around graduation. I’d meet a guy, have a beautiful wedding, and we'd buy a nice little house—not necessarily with a picket fence, but with whatever kind of fence we wanted. Whatever we decided, I would be happy. When I got out of college and my life didn’t look like that, I floundered, trying to get the life I had always dreamed of through career, travel, and relationships. But none of them satisfied me as I hoped. Like many twentysomethings, I tried to discover the life of my dreams, but instead I just kept accumulating baggage—school loans, electronics I couldn’t afford, hurt from broken relationships, and unmet expectations for what life was “supposed to be” like. Just when I had given up all hope of finding the “life I’d always dreamed about,” I decided to take a trip to all fifty states . . . because when you go on a trip, you can’t take your baggage. What I found was that “packing light” wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. This is the story of my trip and learning to live life with less baggage.
Beautifully written and unexpectedly moving, John Darnielle's audacious and gripping debut novel Wolf in White Van is a marvel of storytelling and genuine literary delicacy. Welcome to Trace Italian, a game of strategy and survival! You may now make your first move. Isolated by a disfiguring injury since the age of seventeen, Sean Phillips crafts imaginary worlds for strangers to play in. From his small apartment in southern California, he orchestrates fantastic adventures where possibilities, both dark and bright, open in the boundaries between the real and the imagined. His primary creation, Trace Italian, is an intricate text-role playing game that enables participants far and wide to explore a dystopian America, seeking refuge amidst the ruin. However, when two high school players, Lance and Carrie, extend the game into their reality, the consequences are horrifying, leaving Sean to account for it. Darnielle’s Wolf in White Van invites us to comprehend the depth and intricacy of Sean's life. Told in reverse, the story draws us back to the moment that fundamentally altered Sean’s life as he knows it.
In the tinder-dry Southwest, three eco-minded roommates--students at Deep Canyon College, known for its radical politics--are looking for love, adventure, and the promise of a bigger life that led them West. But when the FBI comes to town in pursuit of an alum wanted for "politically motivated crimes of property," rumor has it that undercover agents are enrolled in classes, making the college dating scene just a bit more sketchy than usual. Katie, an incoming freshman, will discover a passion for activism that will put her future in jeopardy; Jenna, in her second semester, will find herself seduced by deception; and Rell, a senior, will discover her voice, her calling, and love where she least expects it.
