Customer Reviews

I'd Rather Be Writing

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you're a "serious writer" - the type who sits down at the keyboard and opens up a vein, as Red Smith would say - you need I'd Rather Be Writing.

You need this book because you're probably taking yourself too seriously, as writers tend to do. Marcia Golub offers balm for your wounded soul via sound advice and a fantastic sense of humor.

The mixture makes for a book that's helpful, and often hilarious.

While the style may be breezy, there's plenty of meat. I found the sections on writer's block, meeting a rigid self-imposed deadline, and "writing through" very helpful. True, it's advice that you've probably heard or read before. But Marcia presents ideas and exercises that are fresh and genuinely useful.

For instance, here's one of her more serious passages about making progress:

"Some people tell themselves they can't write without a perfect beginning. They're looking for that opening sentence, that great scene, the bit that's going to bring the whole together. And so they can't start. But they can't get that beginning without actually beginning. No amount of kvetching and moaning and pushing is going to get it out of them. The only chance one has of finding that beginning is beginning. This sounds like a koan, some kind of irritating wisdom along the lines of the sound of one hand clapping. I don't mean to annoy you. There's no other way to say it. You start by starting. You give up perfectionism. What has perfectionism done for you lately? It's kept you frozen in the dread of that first step. Instead of giving into that feeling you say: okay this isn't how I want it to go, but it's a start. Then you tap out an inane sentence or two or two hundred . . . eventually it will start to flow . . . by the time you get to the end you will know or at least have a better idea how to begin."

I would venture to say that this is Ms. Golub's best selling book. By her own admission, her novels have not fared well. Maybe she should adapt the muse she followed in the writing of this book to her fiction. If she put this voice and wit into a novel, there's plenty of potential.

I usually find that books about writing pretty much say the same. Not true for this book. First I fell in love with the cover, then I ended up devouring the whole book as I sat nodding with appreciation for all the advice the author gives with regard to trying to find the time to write to how not to sabotage your writing time. This one is on the top of my list for writing advice books.

I have been a semi-professional writer for about six years now, but have always tended to shy away from `How To' books for writers. Rather than set my mind free and allow the ideas to flow, I find they just leave me scared that my structure is all wrong, I don't know my character's motivations, and what have you. They tell me how to write, not *what it is to write* - a crucial difference. This book addresses not the technical aspects of writing, but the practical ones - like managing to fit writing into a life which already involves cooking, cleaning, picking up kids from school, and the writer's nemesis - procrastination! (heck, why do you think I'm sitting here writing a review on Amazon when I should have started my writing three quarters of an hour ago?)

Marcia Golub's book is the only book on writing which makes me want to rush to my computer and start typing as soon as I have finished a chapter. I bought it after a bout of writer's block which saw one and a half screenplays and half a novel languish on my hard drive for months, while I quietly rolled up into a quivering ball vowing to never write ever again. After reading `I'd Rather Be Writing', my only question is: what was I so scared of? Why did I avoid working on what I love doing?

Any writer, amateur or professional, will be able to sympathise with the situations Golub sets out. It's bizarre but true - writers will sometimes do anything to get out of the act of writing and more importantly, putting their work out into the open where it may succeed or fail. It is all too easy to fall into bad habits, and disconnect yourself with the reasons you fell in love with writing in the first place. Golub helps you break these habits, and form productive ones in their place.

Her writing style is conversational and witty - she makes you feel as if you're an old pal who has stopped over at her place for a nice cup of coffee and a bit of advice. Working through her hints and tips and following her advice, I've now finished both screenplays, and am looking forward to completing the novel rather than dreading it.

If you have a family member or loved one who drives you crazy as they rant at their computer, tear their hair out, wear a track into the carpet with their pacing, and insist on giving the dog its fifth walk of the day - I highly recommend you pick up a copy and place it on their bookshelf right next to the Strunk and White. It'll be a reward for you as well as them!

This should be at the side of every writer's computer. Golub manages to offer dozens of tips and techniques for the serious writer and yet remain funny and engaging. The style is breezy - never pedantic. Here's a writer's manual that is also a good read. Highly recommended!

Any writer should add this book to her book shelf. Golub, a younger more modern Brenda Ueland, gently encourages with "try this" exercises while pulling the reader along with anecdotes, warm & user friendly instruction. "I'd Rather..." is like the English teachers I wish I had. It in interspersed with priceless touches of humor from real life. Golub exposes herself to give the reader a shoulder to lean on and a hand to hold. If you used to sit on your grandmother's lap and listen to stories until you could tell your own, you'll cozy up and rest in Golub's lap of instruction and come away having learned a good deal about living, loving and writing almost without effort.

I read the reviews and dated though some might be, I must say that I agree with all but one. This book was the gentle push that I needed to set aside my excuses and get back to my craft. Marcia has written this book in such a way that I no longer felt alone and probably not meant to be a writer since I struggled so hard sometimes about doing it. Her perspective is completely in-line with so many women writers--a mother, trying to juggle children, home and family time. I can see how some men might not take this book as seriously, but perhaps that's because they come from a different place. But as a mom and a writer with few writer friends, this book made me feel good about myself again and not so isolated in my struggle and passion of writing.

Keep up the great work, Marcia. I wish you were a neighbor. I'd pine to walk next door to talk to you while trying to finish my novel.

I've read or skimmed several books about writing over the last few years and found that most of them led to a paralyzing depression, those sit-down-and-outline-the-whole-story-and-write-ten-pages-about-each-character-before-you-type-a-word-type books. I'm not saying such methods don't work--what do I know--or that successful writers don't write that way--they probably do. But for *me*, even considering adopting such a regimen deadens any urge I might have to hit the keyboard.

Marcia Golub's I'd Rather Be Writing, on the other hand, is the furthest thing from disheartening. The author offers practical advice about writing that the average mortal can imagine following--advice about note-taking and imposing deadlines on oneself and keeping numerous projects, in varying stages, going at once. The principal piece of advice one comes away from the book with, however, is a simple one, that if you want to be a writer, you have to sit down every day--or as close to every day as you can--and write *something* for some length of time. This is not earth-shattering information, of course, and indeed none of what Golub has to say is particularly profound. Nor did it have to be said at such length. The book could probably get the same information across in half the pages.

But that wouldn't have been as much fun. Golub's writing is pleasingly breezy and occasionally funny. ("I know there are marriages where husband and wife both work at home. I also know there are marriages where husbands push wives out of windows and wives sprinkle arsenic on their husbands' bowls of pasta. I'm not saying the two are related, but you have to wonder.") She lets her personality and her life circumstances spill onto the page. She writes about her own work habits, descriptions of which for some reason always fascinate me. Most importantly, Golub somehow manages to be inspirational. She makes you want to follow her advice, to sit down and write *something*, both because you really want to and because, as she might say, death is just around the corner. (Golub seems unusually aware of her own mortality.) writers looking for a kick in the pants, as the kids say, may well find inspiration here.

Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece

Marcia Golub delivers everything her book promises in the title and then keeps on giving. It's far more than a compilation of tips on finding more time to write and getting more writing done--it cleverly inspires the reader to write, too.

Whether you're having trouble getting started writing, or your muse exhibits a remarkable tendency for lapsing inconveniently into comas, this book is for you. You'll find in it a serious Rx for whatever woes might keep you from writing, or from writing more often, but it is dispensed with hilarious wit in many passages, and always with the unique and skillful insight only a very gifted writer could impart to others intent on following the path.

Marcia Golub's book is a treasure you will cherish.

I spend way too much time reading books about writing rather than writing. But this book stands out from the dozens of books I've read over 20 years. What impresses me the most is this: It has specific suggestions on the process of incubating ideas, selecting the best ones, and developing those ideas.

As with many books on writing, it offers pep talks and suggestions on technique. But the one thing I found in this that I've not seen in other books is what I've noted above. I believe it will help me move forward to finishing some projects I've had sitting around here for ages.

I read the book twice in 24 hours. It is definitely light reading. From it I garnered only two bits of insight. Yes, they were worth the price of admission, but I cannot recommend this book, except to the most ignorant of neophytes.

Why is it every gal who gets a book published becomes, a posteriori (sp), a writing expert, wittily spouting bits of advice like "Sometimes I'd rather clean the oven than write." Who cares! I write and, yes, some days there are some things I'd rather do than write, but I'm not going to share them with you.

For a touchy-feely, fluff book "I'd Rather Be Writing" is just OK.

3 stars is pushing it.