Customer Reviews

Soul Between the Lines: Freeing Your Creative Spirit Through Writing

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Creativity defines our individuality, it's not an unnecessary decoration, like too many bows on a dress. Of course it's in writing, painting, music; it's also in baking a cake, building a distribution system for auto parts, or talking to your cat, and it's in the choices we make in books or music or bed sheets. You're already creative, whether you admit it or not, or even if your grade school grammar teacher wanted you dead. Writing doesn't have to be the goal here, the idea is to use writing to brain-storm your mind and get it to open, and then turn it to any creative endeavor. Ms. Gray's book has enough muscle and exercises to drag something out of you. Even mundane results can provide joy, and you might just create something extraordinary that may, just for a moment, let someone transcend the ordinary world.

One note of caution, some of the exercises tended to get me reminiscing about every dreary thing that ever happened to me. Writing for therapy leads inward and can mire me in self-pity. It may be healing, but creativity expects you to move beyond the pathos and into a larger world where it is the therapy itself.

Dorothy Randall Gray, author of "Soul Between the Lines," has for many years taught a workshop called "Writing From Your Heartland." This book, which draws heavily on that workshop, has a very informal style that's rather endearing, and keeps a couple of things from becoming annoying. For example, all her tales of benefits people have gained from her workshop would sound self-congratulatory if the tone were more formal. "Soul" is about figuring out your life, trying things until you find out what works for you, and heading off in a better direction than the one you rode in on.

Ms. Gray has a wonderful sense of poetry. Her prose is a little rougher, with some interesting typos and mistakes here and there, but I've seen far worse and did enjoy her style quite a bit. Each chapter (or section of chapter) ends up with several specific sections. One is called "journeys," and suggests topics for freewrites that involve the concepts just discussed. "Food for thought" is a sort of free-association list. Finally, each section ends with "seasonal surrenders." These are little rituals you can use to remind yourself of the divinity and specialness of life.

There are definitely some things about this book I didn't like. It's a bit new-agey for me. In particular, the section on angels annoyed me. The tone of the section left me with the impression that angels were supposed to be silly, cherubic beings playing pranks on people for fun. Ms. Gray sometimes refers to things as being "medical fact," or having been shown through research, as though research automatically confers validity--there's plenty of flawed research out there.

Ultimately, there are several considerations to keep in mind when deciding whether you want to read this book:
1. If you want a serious book on writing, you probably want a different book.
2. If you want a book on exploring spirituality through writing, this is probably a great book for you.
3. If you want a book with some neat new stuff that might inspire your creativity in unusual directions, and you don't mind reading through the spirituality, then this book has some inspiring and unusual writing prompts that you won't find elsewhere.

Creativity defines our individuality, it's not an unnecessary decoration, like too many bows on a dress. Of course it's in writing, painting, music; it's also in baking a cake, building a distribution system for auto parts, or talking to your cat, and it's in the choices we make in books or music or bed sheets. You're already creative, whether you admit it or not, or even if your grade school grammar teacher wanted you dead. Writing doesn't have to be the goal here, the idea is to use writing to brain-storm your mind and get it to open, and then turn it to any creative endeavor. Ms. Gray's book has enough muscle and exercises to drag something out of you. Even mundane results can provide joy, and you might just create something extraordinary that may, just for a moment, let someone transcend the ordinary world.

One note of caution, some of the exercises tended to get me reminiscing about every dreary thing that ever happened to me. Writing for therapy leads inward and can mire me in self-pity. It may be healing, but creativity expects you to move beyond the pathos and into a larger world where it is the therapy itself.

Wow. My life, my writing, my spirit have all been unmistakenly transformed by this incredible book. I have never seen so many stimulating writing exercises. But more than that, Soul Between The Lines is about creating the life you want, living in the fullness of your spirit, and empowering yourself in so many wonderful ways. I loved the way Dorothy writes, the way she shares herself, and teaches you how to transform the atmosphere in and around you. It is the most inspiring book I have read in years, better than Julia Cameron or Natalie Goldberg. No wonder people like Iyanla Vanzant and Larry Dorsey endorsed this book. It is a treasure beyond belief. Everyone should have this book!

Disappointingly new-age with lots of stuff about the magic of colors, and the magic of air, water, fire and earth, etc. etc. Might have been intriguing had I picked this up in the New Age section, but I found it tiresome after a while.

I certainly wasn't able to use her suggested exercises as a jumping-off point. However, I did like the personal anecdotes of her life, and I think she would certainly be an interesting person to meet and have a conversation with.

All in all, however, I was greatly reminded of Luisah Teish's JUMBALAYA, and Teish's book is the one I preferred. I would suggest reading that instead

Creativity defines our individuality, it's not an unnecessary decoration, like too many bows on a dress. Of course it's in writing, painting, music; it's also in baking a cake, building a distribution system for auto parts, or talking to your cat, and it's in the choices we make in books or music or bed sheets. You're already creative, whether you admit it or not, or even if your grade school grammar teacher wanted you dead. Writing doesn't have to be the goal here, the idea is to use writing to brain-storm your mind and get it to open, and then turn it to any creative endeavor. Ms. Gray's book has enough muscle and exercises to drag something out of you. Even mundane results can provide joy, and you might just create something extraordinary that may, just for a moment, let someone transcend the ordinary world.

One note of caution, some of the exercises tended to get me reminiscing about every dreary thing that ever happened to me. Writing for therapy leads inward and can mire me in self-pity. It may be healing, but creativity expects you to move beyond the pathos and into a larger world where it is the therapy itself.

Soul Between the Lines is a MUST have for any writer-to-be that aspires to synthesize creativity and spirituality. Since it is understood that true creativity comes from the Creator, a successful writer must learn how to be a passive agent for the Spirit and Gray definitely captures this message in her book. Fantastic!

Disappointingly new-age with lots of stuff about the magic of colors, and the magic of air, water, fire and earth, etc. etc. Might have been intriguing had I picked this up in the New Age section, but I found it tiresome after a while.

I certainly wasn't able to use her suggested exercises as a jumping-off point. However, I did like the personal anecdotes of her life, and I think she would certainly be an interesting person to meet and have a conversation with.

All in all, however, I was greatly reminded of Luisah Teish's JUMBALAYA, and Teish's book is the one I preferred. I would suggest reading that instead.