Customer Reviews

Pocket Muse: Ideas and Inspirations for Writing

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"The Pocket Muse", despite its name, is not really small enough to fit in your pocket (although it'll easily fit into your backpack, purse, or bag). It has an odd black-and-olive color scheme that I actually came to love after a while. Black and white photos are scattered throughout, and they're quite well reproduced. Suggestions are presented sideways, right-side-up, at an angle, on (reproduced) tacked-up notes, luggage tags, and index cards.

There are suggestions and exercises. Sentences with blanks to fill in. Ruminations on elements of writing. Little horoscopes you can apply to your characters. Quotes from writers that don't duplicate the quotes I've seen in all the other writing books! (Monica Wood promised this would be the case in the introduction, and to be honest I didn't believe her. I do now.)

There's fire and enthusiasm, and a deep understanding of the writing life and what it takes to not only survive it, but enjoy and thrive in it. Her "ten commandments for a happy writing life" and her recommendations for handling rejections are spot-on.

I have not a single complaint about this book, except perhaps that I'd like to take every single page and put it on a card in a deck. Then on any given day I could shuffle the deck and draw a card or two.

There are a lot of things in writing books that bug me--bits of advice I don't agree with. Condescending attitudes toward new & developing writers that annoy me. Ways of approaching things that, really, everyone else has already done a hundred times over. Instead, in "The Pocket Muse" you'll just find lots of fun, bushels of inspiration, and plenty of things to think about!

This is a wonderful gift book for the writer in your life. Inside the pages, you'll find photographs-- some cute, some beautiful-- and tidbits of advice about writing and prompts to spark your creativity.

The book has a likable randomness to it; you can open it to any page and just read until you feel like writing again. Some pages have fairly lengthy anecdotes, and others are just a few lines long, with instructions like "Write about a simple board game that turns its players into pie-eyed cutthroats" and "Take two people you know who seem to be opposites in every way. Think about them until you hit on something they have in common. Start writing."

It fulfills the promise of its title: it is, indeed, a handy little dose of inspiration. It's upbeat without being cloying, encouraging without being unrealistic, and full of very do-able exercises.

I recommend this book as a gift because it applies to all writers; all of us have times when the Inspiration Fairy just seems to have flown away, and this book speaks to that. It won't teach you how to be a better writer-- it'll just entice you to set pen to paper again in a friendly coach-ish sort of way.

My only complaint is that my fingerprints show on the glossy colored pages. Is that a stupid complaint? I'm petty like that. But it's still the kind of book that's fun to have around...

A nice little book - it won't exactly fit in your pocket, but it's small enough to be tucked away in a laptop case. It has the usual 'suggestions for writing,' any one of which generally puts the lid on a grownup writer's imagination, especially if one is actually engaged in writing something. However,they are not intrusive, and the book also has a lot of practical, cheerful advice about the problems of the writing life: time, place, revision,style and so forth. I particularly liked 'you have to be willing to write badly' and the mantra: 'one more sentenec' when tempted to quit. That one sounded like the voice of a good friend encouraging one to go on, go on.I also liked her scheduling of 'once a week,' 'once a month' 'once a year' tasks - I e-mailed that one to my writing friends! This is a valuable book particularly for those lonely moments when one is tempted to pack it all in and go back to teaching drama in primary schools.

Always on the lookout for writing ideas, I picked up this little book to flip through and see if anything would catch my eye. Just about everything did.

The person responsible for the construction of this neat little book, whether it be the author or the publisher, deserves a pat on the back. This is a fun book. Each page offers a different background, different typesets, and varied images/pictures. Along with ideas to get you started, the author also includes tips on style, and humorous stories of things that have gone wrong(and right)in writer's lives.

Whether or not *The Pocket Muse* actually gets you writing, it's still an enjoyable book that you can read just for fun.

This little book is a wonder in itself. It is a combination book of philosopy, book of poetry, and book of inspirational ideas.

It doesn't spell out a whole scene on every page that you are encouraged to write out yourself like other idea books...it gives you a tiny snippet of an idea that you can springboard off into your own writing journey.

It does have some neat little stories and poems that are less than 1 1/2 pages long, has gorgeous black and white pictures that can prompt your imagination into a story or memory of your own, and the subtle, gentle push by the author through out the book for you to go ahead and 'take the plunge, write...!" is ambiguous enough to not sound like your mother nagging at you to get a chore done.

I like the fact the book is small--five x seven inches--and easily thrown into a purse or coat pocket.

Well done, Ms. Wood!

Some of the ideas are simple. Some make you slap yourself and say "why didn't I think of that?!" Some of the ideas you thought of already but Monica Wood put a new twist on them. The book is full of inspiring flotsam and wonderful tidbits of ideas that will get your brain thinking and maybe even your heart feeling a little more. This handy little treasure shows you that writing is not just about thinking up a great idea, but it is about observing the great ideas that are around you already.

It's filled with great ideas, funny pictures, sound advice--I really can't think of a better book that's small enough for you to carry around with you anywhere. Also, a good conversation starter with other friends or in the coffee shop.

While flipping through this, I've come up with several different stories. Now all I need is a book to help me stay focused on one idea at a time.

I will have this book forever. Every time I open a page I learn something or get inspired to write something new. The author covers everything from how to face rejection to how to give a good reading to handling envy. (I really needed that one!) And the writing exercises are all things I have not seen before, and I've taken a lot of classes. This book will stay on my shelf as a perfect companion for this aspiring writer.

This book is a gem! It should be beside all computers and typewriters! If you're having a bad day at the blank page, just turn randomly to any page, read or just look at the pictures, and WRITE. I have found that this book is a godsend for writer's block. It is also fun.

Like the popular "Little Instruction Book" craze, The Pocket Muse is a another delightful mini book that belongs on every writer's bookshelf. Better yet, keep it very close at hand, especially whenever you need to push your muse a little! Clever illustrations and photos accompany Monica Wood's writing prompts, exercises, mini lessons, cures for writer's block . . . more! There's a little bit of everything in this small package: humor, advice, wisdom, inspiration. Never stilted, never boring . . . always positive. I love it!