Writer's Workshop in a Box [Misc. Supplies]

Manuela Dunn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 23, 2004

Writing is hard work, and it may be terrifying, but it also can be one of the most rewarding ways to engage with yourself and the world. Good writing does not come easily; it takes a single-minded effort and skill. The Writer's Workshop in a Box is what every writer needs to develop that skill. Beautifully designed to sit on a desktop, its contents are intended to stimulate new ideas and guide writers as they navigate the sometimes arduous path to setting words down on paper.

The Writer's Workshop in a Box
includes:

- The Art of Writing, a book to get writers started
- thirty cards presenting daily exercises for the writing life
- an exquisite blank book with a pen

The Art of Writing is a course book that addresses writing techniques as well as root problems every writer encounters: creative blocks, getting started but not finished, uneven writing, lack of confidence, uncontrollable plots, and ill-defined characters. Each "class" endows the writers with skills to overcome these problems, and provides writing tips that can be applied to both fiction and nonfiction. The book contains lessons that draw on the expertise of some of the great masters of creative writing:

- Dorothea Brande (author of Becoming a Writer)
- Eric Maisel (author of Deep Writing and Affirmations for Artists)
- Julia Cameron (author of The Artist's Way, The Vein of Gold, and The Right to Write)

The Writer's Workshop in a Box is the ideal gift for every budding writer and an effective way to inspire new authors to embrace their art and career.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sandra Bark has edited books for major publishing houses and published her own work. Her books include Beautiful as the Moon, Radiant as the Stars: Jewish Women in Yiddish Stories, An Anthology, which she compiled and edited. She lives in Brooklyn.

Product Details

• Misc. Supplies: 96 pages
• Publisher: Tarcher (September 23, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585423645
• ISBN-13: 978-1585423644
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,803,945 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Taking other people's great ideas and repackaging them., February 2, 2005

By 

R. Hill "chill" (Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Writer's Workshop in a Box (Misc. Supplies)

This could have been very interesting. Many excellent books are written that are based on other people's ideas about writing - not the author's. One comes to mind : Walking on Alligators. Although to be fair, the Alligators's author does add her own comment and "affirmation" and those are just as important as the corresponding writer's quote.

Note that the author of the Writer's Workshop in a Box has only written a preface to the tiny book The art of Writing. Every 6 chapters are excerpts from such books as The Artist's Way and Beyond The Words.

There are many problems with this "workshop in a box". One is the packaging : the cover is beautiful, but deceptive. Inside the box, which is more like a book that you open, and which contains many slots, for everything that it contains, well... everything is a disapointment. The notebook is ugly, not at all like the cover, not sylish, more like very out of style, the pen is a very plain one, and the selection of excerpts found in The Art of Writing manual are from books that I have already read. Everything is gray/sepia, all washed-out.

The author selected excerpts from Cameron, Goldberg (Bonni), and Maisel's books. I suggest that you go to the sources, read Beyond The Words by Bonni Goldberg (an excellent book, you can find it for a few bucks in stores that sell books that have been returned to the publisher), read The Artist's Way, read Becoming a Writer. Buy yourself a less narrow notebook which you can open flat more easily, buy yourself a good pen, and forget about any book that wants to workshop you the whole nine yards about writing fiction and non-fiction in 96 small pages, and taking its lessons from the great "masters of writing like Julia Cameron".

The cards are too big to shuffle, and made out of thin cardboard that isn't treated (glossied, plastified), meaning that any humidity will ruin them. On one side is an ugly photo (by one of two unknow photographers, probably friends of the author) in sepia, and on the other side is a suggested activity. Some are good (but not original), such as write first thing in the morning each day for a week, and others are original but won't work for me, such as be attentive to commercials seen on tv and make out a story based on a commercial you find intriguing. There are 30 cards.

There are better gimmiks out there : The Observation Deck, the Autobiography Box (this last one is so cute, but I never used it). There's even a book on I Ching for writers coming out soon, that you can pre-order. It's too bad that there is no "search in the book" or any preview pages to look at. I know that the cover is beautiful. It is great design, really nice. The description is tempting, there are even some rare reviews out there (from obscure sources) that don't seem to trash this merchandise product. Resist.

PS : There is one delightful book you could get now, that you probably don't have already : No Plot, no problems! Not even gimmicky, it is unpretentious, fun, and very encouraging.