Creative Writing for People Who Can't Not Write [Paperback]

Kathryn Lindskoog (Author), Patrick Wynne (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 3, 1989

Crammed with crucial facts, ideas, and warnings never before brought together into clear focus, this guide is not only fun to read, but also work-boots practical. Not only inspiring, but pinch-penny accurate. Not only optimistic, but report-card candid. Not only kindly, but tattle-tale frank. It is an energizing tonic for writers' weary brain cells. Every writer is important. Creative Writing for People Who Can't Not Write is a book for every writer. Topics in this lively blend of advice, inspiration, and scholarly wit include: - the wonder of creativity - getting published, paid, and read - why writing should be impossible - how to avoid looking foolish in print - a sugar-coated history of the whimsical, word-rich English language - the nature of poetry - the sixteen writer-type temperaments - reflections from contemporary writers on their work - a first-ever collation of pages of advice from C.S. Lewis. Lewis once wrote to Lindskoog, 'If you understand me so well, you will understand other authors, too.' Writers who read Creative Writing for People Who Can't Not Write will agree with Lewis' assessment of Kathryn Lindskoog's insight into the writing life. And this book also passes Lindskoog's own test: 'A good writer is a graceful guest in a reader's brain.'

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Crammed with crucial facts, ideas, and warnings never before brought together into clear focus, this guide is not only fun to read, but also work-boots practical. Not only inspiring, but pinch-penny accurate. Not only optimistic, but report-card candid. Not only kindly, but tattle-tale frank. It is an energizing tonic for writers' weary brain cells. Every writer is important. Creative Writing for People Who Can't Not Write is a book for every writer. Topics in this lively blend of advice, inspiration, and scholarly wit include: - the wonder of creativity - getting published, paid, and read - why writing should be impossible - how to avoid looking foolish in print - a sugar-coated history of the whimsical, word-rich English language - the nature of poetry - the sixteen writer-type temperaments - reflections from contemporary writers on their work - a first-ever collation of pages of advice from C.S. Lewis. Lewis once wrote to Lindskoog, "If you understand me so well, you will understand other authors, too." Writers who read Creative Writing for People Who Can't Not Write will agree with Lewis' assessment of Kathryn Lindskoog's insight into the writing life. And this book also passes Lindskoog's own test: "A good writer is a graceful guest in a reader's brain."

About the Author

Kathryn Lindskoog was an accomplished teacher of writing who published all her adult life in a variety of magazines and journals and taught at several institutions, including Rancho Santiago College, Biola University, and Fuller Theological Seminary. She was the author of many books, among them The C.S. Lewis Hoax, How to Grow a Young Reader, C.S. Lewis: Mere Christian, The Gift of Dreams, and The Lion of Judah in Never-Never Land.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Zondervan (September 3, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0310253217
• ISBN-13: 978-0310253211
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #309,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Effective presentation of truth has consequences. Prepare., December 28, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Creative Writing for People Who Can't Not Write (Paperback)

Lindskoog, commended by author C.S.Lewis for her clarity of insight and style, writes to help writers relay the in-formed (in the original sense of the word) teachings of experience, mind and heart. "The world," she says, "has enough suffering in it without unsuccessful writing."

Bad writing is marked by confusion and waste. It ranges from the $2 million spent annually by a telephone equipment firm to explain its incomprehensible instruction manuals, to bending the written word to serve political ploy or commercial greed. Using this book we can convert business, legal, political, academic, sports or any other jargon into clear prose. This is a skill, notes Lindskoog, which can either land us a great job or get us fired.

Creative Writing warns against confusing successful writing with material gain. The enduring reward is the hard-won triumph that comes from knowing how to use words to break through the Jericho walls of indifference, ignorance, and hostility thrown up against truth. When writing is powerful enough to make people think, the author--be it South African playwright Athol Fugard or a mother organising her neighborhood against drug pushers--risks suffering the consequences. Sometimes the only reward is the knowledge that the written word founded in truth is stronger than censorship, assassinations, and threats.

Lindskoog and 30 guest contributors--including science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, Melvin Maddocks of Christian Science Monitor fame, historians, poets, and scientists--offer practical details for buttressing truth with the written word. Each chapter concludes with mind-food exercises designed to combat the spreading epidemic of bad writing, that "fungus infection that seems to thrive in the warm, damp atmosphere of schools."

Readers, like driven cattle, says C.S. Lewis in his chapter of advice, are inclined to escape through unguarded gates. This book is now guarding gates for friends of mine: a scientist leavening his work for the popular press; a lay preacher who has found fresh inspiration for his sermons; a theology student who submits his assignments with greater confidence to rigorous scrutiny; and an English teacher/playwright/story teller who announced his maiden publication for children with a run of 10,000 copies.

Truthful writing can be successful.

A review by S. E. Cregier

-END-

1 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Hillhillhill" Hill ???, August 10, 2005

By 

Hillbilly (Munich, Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creative Writing for People Who Can't Not Write (Paperback)

I don't agree with the following explanation for the English place name Torpenhow Hill on page 105:
"In England there is to this day a place called Torpenhow Hill. That name shows the four layers of British habitation up to this point in our story. "Tor" is the oldest, a pre-Celtic (possibly Iberian) word meaning "hill" Pen is Celtic for "hill" How is from Danish haugr, which means "hill" And of course Hill is English. So it is that Torpenhow Hill means "Hillhillhill" Hill."
I think it is more likely Torpenhow Hill means a "Cottage on a Hill" since torp means cottage in Swedish and Danish; this word was introduced by the Vikings to England.