How to Be a Writer: Building Your Creative Skills Through Practice and Play [Paperback]

Barbara Baig (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 26, 2010 | ISBN-10: 1582978050 | ISBN-13: 978-1582978055

Athletes practice. Musicians practice. As a writer you need to do the same. Whether you have dreams of writing a novel or a memoir or a collection of poems, or you simply want to improve your everyday writing, this innovative book will show you how to build your skills by way of practice.

Through playful and purposeful exercises, you'll develop your natural aptitude for communication, strengthening your ability to come up with things to say, and your ability to get those things into the minds (and the hearts) of readers. You'll learn to:

• Train and develop your writer's powers—creativity, memory, observation, imagination, curiosity, and the subconscious
• Understand the true nature of the relationship between you and your readers
• Find your writer's voice
• Get required writing projects done so you have more time for the writing you want to do
• And much more

Empowering and down-to-earth, How to Be a Writer gives you the tools you need, and tells you what (and how) to practice so that you can become the writer you want to be.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This is a wise, humane and practical book for anyone who wants to write; it guides the novice and re-awakens the veteran to processes and practices which can bring out the best writing in all of us."
—Emma Darwin, author of A Secret Alchemy

"How To Be Writer is the writing coach you always wanted but never knew how to find. Distilling thirty years of writing and teaching, author Barbara Baig serves up substance and support in her own sparkling prose. Any writer in search of encouragement and inspiration needs only one notebook, one pen, and a copy of this book."
—Kate Whouley, author of Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved

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About the Author

Writer and self-described maverick educator" Barbara Baig has been helping adults and college students learn how to write since 1984. Barbara's real-world writing experience, combined with her passion for teaching, has enabled her to develop an approach that is innovative, practical, and empowering, helpful to amateur and professional writers alike."

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Writer's Digest Books (September 26, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582978050
• ISBN-13: 978-1582978055
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #401,732 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great addition to every writer's library December 12, 2010

By Lowell Moon

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

There are shelves full of helpful texts on characterization, setting, plot or dialogue. But this wonderful book offers something more fundamental - tools to build the skills necessary for successful communication from writer to reader.
Barbara Baig knows that writing skills are best acquired through focused exercise and she provides a clear and accessible course. She has a real gift for rendering complex ideas into digestible bites, and she provides exercises that target each key idea, insuring that readers internalize the material.
This practical guide is really more of a reference book, to be read and reread. The exercises are meant to be practiced over and over, so that the skills they build move into the writing muscle, available to the writer without conscious summoning.
Anyone seriously committed to writing well will benefit from a careful reading of this book.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical advice for aspiring writers October 9, 2010

By Stewart Baker

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Barbara Baig teaches people to write, day in and day out.

It shows. This book about how to write is practical and down-to-earth. Writing is not some dreamy artistic state achieved by the talented few, she makes clear, but a craft that any of us can learn to perform competently.

And with her advice to follow, that's exactly so. She's taken a year's worth of writing lessons and distilled them into clear, inspiring prose. Anyone who follows this advice will finish the book a better writer than they started.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Help for Writers September 14, 2010

By Joem D. Phillips

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Have you ever thought about writing but didn't know where to start? This book will give you the encouragement you need to take up pen and paper and start. Have you tried writing only to give up because it wasn't going well according to your critical self? This book is for you. This book is like taking a workshop with a great teacher and then taking the teacher home with you.