"Writer's Block" Busters 101 Exercises to Clear the Deadwood and Make Room for Flights of Fancy [Paperback]

Velina Hasu Houston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 16, 2008 | ISBN-10: 1575255979 | ISBN-13: 978-1575255972

Most writing books are how-to manuals for writing a play or story. Playwright Velina Hasu Houston's new book avoids instruction and instead mentors via writing exercises designed to jump-start the imagination. No matter what your creative writing genre, if you fully invest yourself in these writing exercises, chances are they will either lead you to something that carries your current work to its next phase or take you to entirely new places, providing you with unexpected, fresh material.

Writers, teachers, and actors can benefit from this new book from a twenty-year mentor of playwrights. It can help you wake up your muses, enrich your sensory apparatus, spark a new point of departure for a character or idea, and-clear the deadwood and make room for flights of fancy!

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Every writer needs this packet of wisdom on his or her shelf - preferably before the crises hit!" --David Henry Hwang, Tony Awarding-winning playwright of M. Butterfly

If you've ever suffered from writer's block, then Writer's Block Busters: 101 Exercises to Clear the Deadwood and Make Room for Flights of Fancy is the story medicine you need.

Houston's book is an invaluable bag of tools for the writer, urging us to dig more deeply into our imaginations. I would recommend this book to any student of dramatic writing. Bravo! -Janet Neipris, playwright and director of Graduate Studies, Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University Houston neither teaches nor proscribes, she mentors-lovingly, thoughtfully, and passionately. Houston asks questions and shares insights that open and unleash rather than shape and constrain. This book is a gift to writers of all genres. --Jamil Khoury, founding artistic director, Silk Road Theatre Project, Chicago

Houston taps a wide array of human condition predicaments, philosophical possibilities, visual/sensory prompts, and a little inventive mischief to motivate the dramatist overcoming writer's block. Classrooms and workshops will find the book essential. --Allan Havis, playwright, professor of Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting and provost of Thurgood Marshall college, University of California at San Diego

About the Author

Velina Hasu Houston has written over 30 plays, 14 commissioned. Her plays have appeared internationally at Manhattan Theatre Club, Pasadena Playhouse, Old Globe Theatre, George Street Playhouse, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Smithsonian Institution, Whole heatre/Olympia Dukakis, Nippon Hoso Kai, Negro Ensemble, Syracuse Stage, Mixed Blood Theatre, and others. Houston is Professor of Theatre, Director of Dramatic Writing, Resident Playwright, and Associate Dean of Faculty at the University of Southern California School of Theatre and is the founder of the dramatic writing graduate program at USC, the Master of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Smith & Kraus (September 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1575255979
• ISBN-13: 978-1575255972
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 8.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,557,237 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be on the ready reference shelf of every aspiring or seasoned author October 11, 2008

By Midwest Book Review

Format:Paperback

Sooner or later, every author will encounter the dreaded condition called 'writer's block'. This is when no ideas occur to the writer who may well sit and stair at a blank page in the typewriter or a blinking cursor on the computer screen for hours, days, weeks, and longer. For just such inevitable occasions, and drawing upon her many years of experience and expertise writing more than 30 plays (including fourteen of which were commissioned assignments complete with deadlines), Velina Hasu Houston has compiled a series of 'user friendly' and real-world productive activities and actions in "Writer's Block Busters: 101 Exercises To Clear The Deadwood And Make Room For Flights Of Fancy". Each exercise occupied a single page and is succinctly presented in one paragraph. Occasionally enhanced with quotable quotes, each exercise is designed to prompt the blocked writer to start composing on the spot. Here's an illustrative example: Homecoming: Character A has suffered torture, enslavement, insults, and disrespect in order to return to the side of a loved one. He or she returns home only to find that his or her loved one is gone. Place that sense of rupture and loss in your protagonist. Write. "Writer's Block Busters" should be on the ready reference shelf of every aspiring or seasoned author -- because no matter how gifted or inspired you may be in the pursuit of your craft, sooner or later that dreaded condition known as 'writer's block' will strike. That's when you will reach for your copy of "Writer's Block Busters" and be glad you have it handy!