Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more



or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering
Sell Us Your Item
For a $2.00 Gift Card
Trade in
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Start reading Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.
Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available for
Color:
Image not available

To view this video download Flash Player

 

Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life [Paperback]

Douglas Wilson
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)

List Price: $14.00
Price: $11.97 & FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $2.03 (15%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Only 9 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Want it Tuesday, May 21? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition $7.99  
Paperback $11.97  
Image
Save on Popular Books This Summer
Browse our Bookshelf Favorites store for big savings on popular fiction, nonfiction, children's books, and more.

Book Description

November 16, 2011
Wordsmithy is for writers of every sort, whether experienced veterans, still just hoping, or somewhere in between. Through a series of out-of-the-ordinary lessons, each with its own takeaway points and recommended readings, Douglas Wilson provides indispensable guidance, showing how to develop the writer s craft and the kind of life from which good writing comes.

Frequently Bought Together

Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life + The Rhetoric Companion: A Student's Guide to Power in Persuasion + Father Hunger: Why God Calls Men to Love and Lead Their Families
Price for all three: $39.97

Buy the selected items together


Editorial Reviews

Review

Aspiring writers do not need another pandering, pat-on-the-back, feel-good writer's manual. They don't need any more cheap promises for zero-to-bestseller surefire success. What they need is something with no-nonsense substance, and Douglas Wilson offers it in Wordsmithy. Quick, punchy, and immensely wise, Wordsmithy is a cut-to-the-chase collection of important and sometimes unexpected tips for the writing life. --Brett McCracken, author, Hipster Christianity: When Church & Cool Collide

This book just nails what it takes to be a writer. And it isn't just a matter of being a sensitive creative soul. A writer needs to live in the actual world, to "read the kind of stuff you wish you could write," and to love language. This book embodies what it preaches in its practicality, in how funny and fun to read it is, and in the way its words dance through the mind. --Gene Edward Veith, Provost and Professor of Literature, Patrick Henry College

Wordsmithy is funny, memorable, and full of thought-provoking advice. --Credo Magazine, August 2012

About the Author

Douglas Wilson is pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, ID, editor of Credenda/Agenda magazine, former newspaper columnist, and author of over thirty books on a variety of subjects. He has written for The Huffington Post, World, Books & Culture, Christianity Today, and more. He blogs regularly at dougwils.com. Lord willing, and the creek don t rise, he intends to continue.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 128 pages
  • Publisher: Canon Press; 1st edition (November 16, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1591280990
  • ISBN-13: 978-1591280996
  • Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #146,288 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Douglas Wilson is the minister of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, which is a member of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC). After his stint in the submarine service of the U.S. Navy, he attended the University of Idaho, where he obtained an MA in philosophy.

As one of its founders, he has served on the board of Logos School, a classical and Christian school (K-12), since its inception. He is also a Senior Fellow of theology at New St. Andrews College. He is the author of numerous books, including Reforming Marriage, The Case for Classical Christian Education, Letter from a Christian Citizen, and Blackthorn Winter. He is also the general editor for the Omnibus textbook series. His blog can be found at www.dougwils.com.

All his favorite authors begin their names with initials--C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, H.L. Mencken, J.R.R. Tolkien, N.D. Wilson, and P.G. Wodehouse. The one exception is Nancy Wilson, a favorite author to whom he has been married for over thirty-four years. They have three children and fifteen grandchildren.

Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
(33)
4.8 out of 5 stars
3 star
0
2 star
0
1 star
0
He follows this by advice on reading wisely and well. Tyler Holloway  |  15 reviewers made a similar statement
If you want to learn to write better, get this book immediately. D. Nilsen  |  14 reviewers made a similar statement
I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to be a writer. David Henry  |  15 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, One Of The Best Out There January 17, 2012
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Douglas Wilson has already written more books then the average American will read in their lifetime. His writing advice on his blog has been among the most popular content for a long time, and I was excited to see a book that expanded on his simple, effective tips. I was not disappointed. As a publisher, I have read a number of books on writing and advice for authors, and this is among the best.

Each of Wilson's seven writing tips has its own chapter, where 7 more sub-tips are given and additional books are recommended. I love the style that this book is written in. It is easily digestible, and will improve your writing immediately. His first two chapters are on living a real life and on reading more. I can't imagine a better start to a writing book.

I am a frequent highlighter/book-marker, but this book is so short and focused that there is really no need to highlight. All of the material is very good and easily referenced when you need a pick-me-up or a good kick in the pants. Wilson's writing is not a dry list of rules to follow, but a seriously funny guide to the writing life. It will make you laugh out loud and convict your own conscience in one fell swoop.

Some of my favorite quotes from Chapter 1:

"Your writing advances a particular view of the world. Pretending that it doesn't just confuses everybody, starting with you." (21)

"Interesting people are interested people." (23)

"Mark Twain once defined a classic as a book that everyone wanted to have read, but which no one wanted to read. In a similar spirit, lots of folks want to be "a writer" because they have had a few great ideas for a television script. They want to be a writer but are not all that thrilled about actually writing. They don't want to write, they want to have written." (25)

Buy it, you won't be disappointed. If you are at all interested in writing, this is the place to start. Highly Recommended.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Funny and thoughtful May 30, 2012
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Point: You may think you are the next writing genius, but chances are you will have to muddle, labor, fail, and suffer through the process of becoming a good writer. That is the good news. The bad news can wait for another book.

Path: Wilson gives a series of seven broad suggestions to the writer. Because a writer is first an individual, he challenges the reader to become a better person so they might become a better writer. Therefore this book is not so much about where to put a comma, or how to find an editor, as it is on how to become an individual who has something to say.
The seven tips are as follows:
Know something about the world, and by this I mean the world outside of books.
Read. Read constantly. Read the kind of stuff you wish you could write. Read until your brain creaks.
Read mechanical helps.
Stretch before your routines.
Be at peace with being lousy for a while.
Learn other languages, preferably languages that are upstream from ours.
Keep a commonplace book.
Each of these tips receives a chapter which is then divided into seven more ideas to strengthen the main tip. At the end of the chapter Wilson leaves the reader with some outside reading.

Sources: Obviously an avid read, Wilson leaves the reader with a taste of Chesterton, Wodehouse, and the Scriptures.

Agreement: I enjoyed reading this humorous little book and it encouraged me to write. I need to write poems, stories, articles, and novels. I need to write something even when no one will ever read it. Not only did he encourage me to write, but he encouraged me to listen. I need to listen to those around me, listen to those I read, listen to what is being said.

Personal App: As Chesterton has said, anything worth doing is worth doing badly. I might as well get started.

Favorite Quote: "I estimate that my iPhone is the equivalent of having one hundred thousand servants. The problem is that about ninety thousand of those servants of mine are sitting on their butt all the time."

This would be a good book for someone who is interested in writing pretty much anything. If you are a blogger - buy this. If you are planning to write children stories - buy this. If you just like to read - buy this, you may start writing.

I plan on reading it again. Probably a few times. Some just to laugh, others to be reminded that I need to be listening, reading, and writing more.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars blows other writing books out of the water February 3, 2012
Format:Paperback
I've read a number of fantastic books on writing--books so inspiring, they're hard to finish because I'm constantly dropping them to start practicing what they teach. Doug Wilson's "Wordsmithy" is up there with the best of them. It's staying right here on my desk, and it isn't going to get dusty.

Some of Wilson's punchiest lines:

"You are a wordsmith. Remember that you are in the smithy all day long." (22)

"If you want to say a lot, you have to have a lot to say." (24)

"If you 'write by rule' only, then...you will come up [with] something that is equally free of both vice and virtue, like a verbal tapioca pudding made with skim milk." (32)

"The quality of what you keep will be directly proportional to how much you are willing to throw away." (81)
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Incisive and insightful!
If I could only find a notebook to start writing down all the great quotables and ideas in this book!
Published 23 days ago by Mike DeVries
5.0 out of 5 stars Capital; just capital!
Classically educated, I thought I was a reader; then I met Doug and his Muscovite cadre. Scholars and wits all, their sense of infectious inquisitiveness was mixed with joy in... Read more
Published 25 days ago by David M. Zuniga
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book Full of Tips
If you enjoy Doug's writing style, then you will certainly enjoy this book. It's packed with helpful information. Read more
Published 25 days ago by Ryan Ray
5.0 out of 5 stars Very helpful
Witty, punchy, and wise. I enjoyed reading it, but I'm really going to enjoy putting this stuff into practice. Thanks Doug!
Published 1 month ago by Hope
5.0 out of 5 stars Wordsmithy: A Hot Trip through the Best of the English Language, and...
I want to be a novelist, an essayist. Please don't misjudge me: I don't have any pretensions. Actually, Doug Wilson has just whacked me over the head with 120 pages of pithy... Read more
Published 3 months ago by R. Golias
5.0 out of 5 stars Must reading for anyone who wants to write
This is an entertaining book on how to write well--that is rare in this world, and a welcome addition to the literature in the field. Read more
Published 3 months ago by C. Fred Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars Pithy and fun
Pithy little book on writing, and very entertaining as well - sometimes made me laugh out loud. A 21st century Strunk & White.
Published 4 months ago by phanatic
4.0 out of 5 stars Very Helpful
Love him or hate him, and there are some on either extreme, Douglas Wilson can flat-out write. He has put this talent to use in writing over thirty books and countless articles,... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Tim Challies
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for aspiring writers, and everyone else for that matter
Wordsmithy is a book designed to help you improve your writing, and Wilson's seven tips (with seven subtips each) will definitely do that. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Tyler Holloway
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent-- And More than a Writing Book
Doug Wilson gave us a real gift when he banged out Wordsmithy on his blog June 2010. The writing has been captured and set to print in a fine little 120 pager. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Eric Durso
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Forums

There are no discussions about this product yet.
Be the first to discuss this product with the community.
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 



So You'd Like to...



Look for Similar Items by Category