Customer Reviews

The Observation Deck: A Tool Kit for Writers (Past & Present)

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I don't read software manuals. I also don't take much to lengthy, sequential how-to tomes. And I certainly don't have the patience for most of the windy, eliptic BS that passes for writing advice these days.

I'm like a lot of people who sling words for a living, I think. Right brained, non-linear, and intuitive. (Or as my better half would put it: illogical, disorganized, and flaky.)

Imagine my curiosity when I read about THE OBSERVTION DECK...and then my delight when it turned out to be as downright useful as I suspected it might be.

Do what I just did. Take the leap and get this book. Yank a card...any card...and feel those tenuous abstract notions take perceivable form. Maybe not right away...but the subconscious river will be flowing a little more freely...and productively.

A very cool way to hammer writer's block. Expend a minute or a few hours. What works for those more renowned others seems to work for me...somehow.

I'm guessing that it will for you too.

I'll make this brief: after struggling with writer's block, lack of inspiration, and listless attempts at writing for months, I picked up The Observation Deck in the hopes that it might jump-start my creative fires. The same night I opened it up and read the book, I sat down and penned three thousand words, with ideas for many thousands more swimming around in my head.

I have a feeling I'll soon be wondering how in the world I got along without this little deck of cards. I wholly recommend this deck if your creativity is suffering, you need a fresh perspective, or just want to put a new spin on your writing. I have found it to be an invaluable tool -- some of the best money I've spent in quite a while.

... my husband heard Naomi Epel interviewed on NPR right after The Observation Deck was published. He ordered it for me as an I-love-you present, and I've used it ever since. The cards are a little ratty and dirty at the edges now from so much fingering and fiddling.
Of course, not all of the suggestions for unlocking the Writer Within are useful to a specific individual, but I found at least 75% of them to be applicable to writers of all genres, both fiction and nonfiction.
The success of The Observation Deck is proof of the adage: Writers write - because sometimes it's not so much what you write as it is the fact that you're writing at all...

"The Observation Deck: A Tool Kit for Writers" includes a portable carrying box, a small, 160-page booklet, and 50 cards with short phrases on them. The idea is that you go through the cards (one at a time, at random, several at a time, or however else you like) and, if you need more inspiration than the simple phrase, you pull out the book and look up the card. Most of the cards are meant to inspire ways of writing, rather than content. I had been expecting the latter, so I was slightly disappointed to have gotten the former. However this is still very useful stuff. You might also be able to adapt some of these cards to inspire content instead of methods, as long as you use the cards and not the book. Each card's description in the book starts off by giving specific examples of how the technique is used by one (or usually several) well-known writers. Then it goes on to suggest some ways that you could apply it to your own writing.

A few examples include: Observe a Ritual, Locate the Fear, Take a Walk, Write a Letter, Think Architecturally, and Conduct an Interview. Much of this isn't terribly new--mostly what you're getting out of this is the deck of cards that makes randomization easy, and the booklet that includes examples, interpretations, and so on.

My only real problem with this product was the cards themselves. They're plain, with a phrase in olive green on a white background, sans artwork. Unfortunately, they give the impression of someone who has just recently discovered that you can make nifty font-sizes and put words in odd places with a word processor, and who went a little nuts with it. In other words, it alternately comes across as pretentious and silly.

If you already have a method of working that you enjoy then these cards will probably be of limited value to you. On the other hand, you can use the book like a series of exercises if you need to expand your range a bit, break through a case of writer's block, or get started on your writing. They can be handy when you're having a bit of a creativity drought, and they could be quite useful to aspiring writers who could use a little help.

"The Observation Deck" is a cute boxed set from Naomi Epel for writers who suffer from writers block or other inspiration malfunctions.

The set from Epel contains 50 cards meant to inspire thoughts, stories or other ways of thinking during the writing process. A little book is also included that contains techniques that have worked for other writers such as "Eavesdrop" a little trick apparently used by famous writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Eudora Welty and many others. The book is more effective than the cards and I would like to see that thought continued in larger volume by Epel.

This set is a nice handy tool to have at hand when doubting your worth as a writer. Grab it for inspiration but rely on your own observations.

Bought this shrink-wrapped from Borders and got more meat than I'd expected a few bucks to cover. The cards, linked to the book's chapters, offer specific ideas rather than insipid axioms. The author, a creative writer and literary escort, quotes bestselling authors liberally. She knows her craft, balancing practicality and whimsy. Buy this for further development rather than initial inspiration, and for fiction over non-fiction. Even so, decently well-rounded. Didn't shock me with brilliance, but certainly earned more than its price.

Brilliant concept to jumpstart and flood the creative consciousness with ideas, energy and direction. Always seeking the quick and efficient fix, THE OBSERVATION DECK, delivers by opening the gates with a nugget. Within a few moments of opening the pack, browsing the booklet and reading just one card, I'm already deep into a new project with joy and courage. Thanks Naomi for being so generous for our sake too!

While The Observation Deck is a great tool for getting unstuck, I think it also offers wonderful tips for established writers for whom getting unstuck is not such a problem. I've been virtually a full-time writer for about seven years now. I just completed a book that is a better book for my having read The Observation Deck. I was having trouble getting the right sort of smart alek but lovable voice for the narrator. Thanks to Naomi Epel's book, I learned that John Steinbeck wrote East of Eden as if it were a letter to his two sons. The voice I wanted for the narrator was the voice I used to use in letters to an old college friend. So I began my days typing "Dear Berta" at the top of the page and pretended I was telling my old friend the story via letter. The missing voice soon followed. I also tried the "Read Aloud" tip. Listening to my own words, which Naomi Epel explains other writers do, proved extremely valuable in testing that voice and editing rough spots which I didn't catch in silent reading.

My soon-to-be published friend Debra introduce me to The Observation Deck -- which I now lovingly call "a writing class in a box."

This is not new, published in 1998, so I was late to join the fan club, and when I tell other friends about it, some look at me patiently and say: You just found it now!

The idea (should you choose to accept this mission) is to use the deck of get-off-your-duff cards to urge you out of writer's block.

This may sound melodramatic, but it has changed my life -- as a writer, editor, listener and observer of people, places and things.

When writer's block hits, pick from over 20 cards that might say: Take a walk; or zoom in and out; explore the underside; follow the scent.... You get the idea. My favorite is: EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER.

The purse-sized, 160-page book has a chapter on each of the "pushes" on the cards. My book is highlighted in yellow, with X in red and Q for wonderful quotes. I read a little, think a lot, and then an idea, or a new way to look at an idea that has been rumbling and grumbling around in my head pops into my thought process.

If you are wannabe writer (or better writer), this would be a great self-gift or for family or friends who are writers.

i am a middle school humanities teacher, and my students just LOVE using the observation deck! we have a program at my school where every student has a writer's notebook, and it was challenging to explain to them how it differed from a diary. exercises like the ones in the observation deck (and the accompanying short essays) have been tremendously helpful. my students come to class with their notebooks, begging to use the deck. what's more, they're starting to think of "new cards" to add to the collection. i've even had parents ask where they can by their own deck to have at home. bravo naomi epel!!!