Customer Reviews

Walking on Alligators: A Book of Meditations for Writers

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It's been awhile since I read excerpts from this book, but the general message of the book remains with me...one sign of an effective book. It's the kind of book you keep on your desk and pick up when you need that kick in the pants to get back to writing. The author understands and says just the 'write' thing! Buy one for yourself, and for a friend who keeps wistfully saying, "I really want to get serious about writing someday...."

For any writer, they will be faced some time in their writing life where they will be stumped. I believe this book is a book to help writers of today. If you are going to sit down and write for today, and need some inspiration pick up this book. Opening this book, you come to a page where there are two critiques. One that stuck out the most to me was one that summarized this book in just a paragraph. "Many writers thirst to know what other writers have to say about what they do, and how they do it...I find that suggestions and ideas from this book float back to me at odd times, like when I'm picking off the anchovies at the pizza restaurant, and I think, yes, I could try that," Adair Lara said. Susan has said that writers in this book are here to make a path for you. Agreeing with her, I feel that this book is to kick some rocks out of the way. Each page gives a message from a writer, a little story and a mediation to follow. Every mediation is appropriate in getting the point across to today's writers. This book is filled with many extrodianary writers helping you pave the path to your life as a writer. Ending, I leave you with, "You are ready to begin your life as a writer, write today, the curtain is up."

Susan Shaughnessy's "Walking On Alligators: A Book of Meditations for Writers" (HarperCollins; paperback; 203 pp.), is a hard-edged gem of a book that cuts to the often-irritated quick of the writing life.

Via her dually-delivered doses of other people's observations -- mots both juste and justified, whether from familiar figures or unexpected sources -- and her own pithy commentary, the willy and witty Shaughnessy again and again lays a prickly grid of reality over the nebulous field of endeavor in which I toil, rendering it in clearer focus.

I've been working at the word trade for nearly 30 years as reporter, feature writer, and documentary filmmaker. I punched through the first 20 of those years without benefit of access to "Alligators." If I'd been able to avail myself earlier of the insights codified by Shaughnessy in her 1993 volume, I'd have been a wiser and perhaps better writer at a younger age. I'd certainly have avoided or at least short-circuited many of the soul-grinding, spirit-stifling, energy-draining habits of mind and contractual entanglements that dot the terrain of freelance writing like so many plastic anti-personnel mines.

Last fall, while teaching a Smithsonian Associates course on feature writing, I held up my copy of "Walking On Alligators" and told my students, "Get a copy of this book and read it. Even if you don't go on to become a writer, you'll be a better person for having read it." I say the same thing now to you.

I own two -- one copy for home -- and one for the office. Shaughnessy's book inspires me when I catch myself doing something other than the writing I'm supposed to be doing. And it does so with succinct, motivational, and sometimes philosophical paragraphs. Walking on Alligators is one of my top books for gift-giving, ever since I bought my first copies a few years go.

I bought this book two years ago and I read it daily as a meditation. Whether or not I write every day, it always keeps me focused on what I need to do, which is to write. I find it inspirational and encouraging no matter where you are with writing. It covers all the fears and phobias any writer or creator might have. A great resource!

In Walking on Alligators, Susan Shaughnessy addresses writer's daily struggles. Her advice and truths provide help to move past the dilemmas, and offers confidence and courage to continue down the path of writing. The book is composed of 200 daily writer's meditations, beginning with a quote from a famous person such as Ralph Waldo Emerson. Shaughnessy includes a short story about the conflict or struggle. The meditation is ended with a promise to improve the quality of writing today, by moving past the difficulties.
The conflicts addressed range from getting started with the piece and continuing to focus on the end result. The advice comes from Susan's own struggles during her writing career along with many other well-known authors. The most important piece of advice Susan shares is to start writing, "The only way to write it to write today. The writing you don't do today is lost forever. Tomorrow's may be better but it may depend on the less exciting groundwork you can lay today."
Susan addresses believing in your work, in your hunches and using creativity in your work. She enables writers to understand the importance of setting goals, creating better working conditions and "accepting there is no easy way to buckle down, so write anyways."
Although, the book doesn't offer a step by step detailed explanation on how to achieve the advice, the encouragement and support makes you feel as if you have a thousand writers helping you improve you success one day at a time.

It is certainly an attractive little volume, though I don't care much for the font (a serif font that looks as if there was too little ink to fully print each segment of each letter). And I suppose it can be inspirational, in at least a vague, kind of new-agey way, for some writers. (Obviously it is, as it's very well rated here.) To each his own, I suppose. While the quotes from writers are selected carefully, and the affirmations following each quote are related to the quotes, I find the affirmations too vague to really be of much use to me. For instance, "I'll recognize the power of belief in shaping my future. I believe that I can write today."

One of Shaughnessy's goals, as she writes in the introduction, is to provide quotations from writers who have already made it in order to help you realize that you must - MUST - write each day. One of the most helpful things I found in the book was when Shaughnessy said, again in the intro, "The writing you don't do today is lost forever. Tomorrow's may be better - but it may depend on the less exciting groundwork you can lay today." Shaughnessy hopes that her book will be a help over "writer's resistance," which is the name she chooses to give to writer's block. And for some, the quotations and affirmations Shaughnessy has collected in this book may be sufficient to help writers past block/resistance. Different people take inspiration from different sources and means.

For me, getting beyond writer's block is not for lack of desire to write, nor believing that I am incapable of writing. What I am looking for from a book like this is some sort of prompt that gives me something real and focused to sink my teeth into, to get me writing about something specific. Affirmations like the one I quoted above, and like the one I am about to quote, are simply not enough to push me over the hump when I am lacking the... whatever it is... that I am lacking when I am stuck. Telling me to tell myself that, "Today, I will spend time sitting quietly, ready to write. I will listen for the beat of wings." (The accompanying author quote compares writing to sitting in a duck blind, waiting for ducks to fly overhead.) When I'm blocked, I can sit and listen for beating wings - or whatever metaphor - for days and days. Another affirmation is, "Today, I'll accept the fact that there is no easy way to buckle down. I will write anyway." Well, duh. What I need, more than pretty words about nebulous concepts, are concrete prompts that will get me writing about something, anything.

Even the more concrete prompts/affirmations provided, like, "Today, I'll write something that stretches me. I'll push a little, and see if my creative hunger responds," are too vague to be helpful to me. I know that each person has to define his or her limits and idiosyncracies, and that what "stretches" a person will vary considerably from writer to writer, but when I'm stuck, I think I need something more focused and narrow than any of the prompts/affirmations provided in this book. Some may find the breadth of the affirmations to be excellent prompts that afford them more freedom and creativity, and some may be inspired by the quotations from established authors and the author's brief thoughts about each quote, but this style does not suit my own writing style and does not work on a practical basis for me.

Again, it is a lovely little book, and, frankly, would dress up a writer's coffee table nicely - or would make a good back-of-the-toilet book for, well, a few minutes of meditation on the art and work of writing. That sounds insulting, and I don't mean it that way at all - never underestimate the value of a thoughtful bathroom break to give you a quick, and much-needed, mental recharge. Perhaps the book would be a good thing to read upon waking, to set a tone for a writer's day, so would fit well on a nightstand. But for concrete writing prompts to kick-start a writer interested in exercising his or her way around a blockage, I don't find this a particularly useful book. Pretty, but not one of those books I go to again and again for inspiration or for regular use. My copy will probably stay shelved or, well, find its way to the back of my toilet.

What a Musesend! I bought this book when it first came out and still use it every day as part of my morning journaling process. When I hit the last page, I return to the first.
I also recommend it (along with "Bird by Bird" by Annie Lamott and "Writing from the Heart" by Nancy Slonim Aronie) to the students in my writing workshops.
The structure is very user friendly and it's surprising how frequently the blurb for the day matches up with my current writing struggle.
It's time for Susan Shaughnessy to dig up some more proven wisdom and continue to keep us inspired.

Susan Shaughnessy began her writing career as a copywriter and editor. She has written two novels, magazine and newsletter articles, speeches, songs, and advertising copy. In Walking on Alligators, Shaughnessy gathers the thoughts of many authors and combines them with stimulating essays as "a daily motivator for people who write and people who long to write."

The author cautions that writing is about today--not procrastination, but writing every single day. She sees her book as a daily companion for the writer. Quick to point out that the book was not intended as a quick read, Shaughnessy offers "200 thought-and pen provoking essays exploring every aspect of the practice and process of writing."

Within these 200 pages, Toni Morrison, Camille Paglia, Diane Ackerman, Anne Rice, Scott Turow, Jane Smiley, Erica Jong, Eudora Welty, and many others are quoted on the subject of writing and creativity. Each quote is followed by a short essay by Shaughnessy and a challenge/affirmation to help the reader reach his or her writing goals.

The profound messages of these daily meditations spark me to aim higher and push farther in my daily attempts at the writing life. Each essay spoke to me in a deeply personal way. Every time I thought one surely was the best of the bunch, another one jumped off the page and danced through my inner core.

A couple of my many favorites appear on a page that I have dog-eared in this handy little paperback:

"When the stuff in life gets really rough, I would just die if I was not writing a novel. Once you think it up, it's like a whole other city with a little door and every time you sit down to write you just open the door and there you are--a wonderful vacation for two hours." --Lee Smith

"Today, I'll try a new attitude toward my writing. I'll view it as a vacation from life. I'll see how that feels." --Susan Shaughnessy

This particular page holds a profound truth that resonates deep within my writer-self. I have affirmed this same thought pattern time and time again. Even now, as I recouperate from surgery for recurrent malignant melanoma, I tell my friends and family that my daily writing is my lifeline as the challenges of life swirl frenetically around me.

Each takes only a few minutes to read. But when read with purpose, these daily meditations and essays linger in your mind and in your writer's soul all day, every day. Just like the drive to write daily that comes from spending time with Shaughnessy's encouraging book.

You can approach this book day by day in numerical sequence, or you may choose to open it at random to see what message awaits you on any given day. Either way, you are sure to find good company in what is otherwise a lonely path for many--the writing path. Tuck this little book someplace handy, and it is sure to become a cherished writing companion. One more favorite...

"Today I will have the courage to go wherever my writing wants to lead me. I will not judge as I write. I will write, and write as honestly as I can." --Susan Shaughnessy

Grab your copy of Walking on Alligators, your pen and paper (or your laptop), step into your special writing place and begin to exercise that courage to go wherever your writing leads!

by Lee Ambrose
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

I have given this wonderful little book to more than a dozen high school seniors facing their first forays into college essay writing, and working on essays required by AP and International Baccalaureate programs. This book has inspired kid and adult friends (and me) to find the words and topics and inspiration they need to convey their messages and connect with others through writing. Thanks, Susan, for addressing so beautifully a pesky problem all writers wrestle with, whether they are trying to toss off a three-paragraph homework assignment through drooping eyes, well after midnight, or write the book that's lingered in their hearts for years. Keep it handy, open your mind, then dip in when faced with the great blizzard white-out on the screen that knows no bounds, but binds. Go free!