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Summer Reading
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I've been so busy with my writing web community that I told myself I wasn't going to look at my review copy of A Writer's Book of Days until after the first of the year. But once the book was in hand, I couldn't help but thumb through the pages. The stunning design and functional format hooked me immediately. Pretty soon I was reading--and the next thing you know, I was writing on one of the daily writing prompts the book offers. Imagine that--WRITING! I haven't had time for writing--just for the pleasure of it--in months. I've been writing three or more "practice pages" a day ever since, and loving every minute of it.
A Writer's Book of Days is a wonderful motivational tool, but it's also a delicious book full of advice that will, quite simply, make you feel like writing. Reeves encourages practice writing, and includes a year's worth of "writing prompts" designed to jump-start the creative process. But don't dismiss this book as another new-agey volume on freewriting. It's as practical as it is motivational. Reeves' writing is personable and honest. Her book makes you feel as though you're sipping coffee with your favorite writing buddy, talking shop.
I'll be offering my highest recommendation on the Coffeehouse for Writers website!
There are, however, a few things that bother me. The first is the insistence than this practice writing be done "by hand." I know there are a lot of writers who feel that the hand-brain connection is almost sacrosanct and that to write this way is like "breathing" and so on. But I think to insist that that is the only way it should be done is likely to cause some people to turn off entirely, to say, "Well, I just won't bother," because the physical act of writing is difficult for them. They will lose out on the valuable things this book offers because they can't fulfill one of the dictums the author seems to require. My own experience as a writer is that I'm just as connected via computer to my thoughts as I am when I handwrite them. In fact, I have a lifetime of painful memories of handwriting and do as little of it as possible. As a published writer, I know that I can write using computer and that doing so doesn't lessen the connection between my heart and my words, I wish Ms. Reeves hadn't made such a point of that being the only way to do such writing practice.
I wish, too, that she had not found it necessary to take a cheap shot at the romance genre. She doesn't take cheap shots at science fiction or westerns. I'm sure there are many people interested in writing romance who will find her flippant dismissal of the genre as "bodice-ripping, heavy breathing purple prose" both an unwarranted stereotype and an unnecessary condescension.
I had intended to buy a copy of this book to give to a romance writing friend of mine, but now I've changed my mind. I'm also reluctant to suggest it to a romance writers' group because no one likes to feel they are being taught by someone who disparages the area in which they choose to work.
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