Writing Down The Bones: Freeing The Writer Within [Paperback]

Natalie Goldberg (Author), Judith Guest (Foreword)

Product Details

• Paperback: 171 pages
• Publisher: Shambhala Publications; 1986 Printing edition (1986)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0014EEMKA
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (209 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,595,095 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Natalie Goldberg lived in Brooklyn until she was six, when her family moved out to Farmingdale, Long Island, where her father owned the bar the Aero Tavern. From a young age, Goldberg was mad for books and reading, and especially loved Carson McCullers's The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, which she read in ninth grade. She thinks that single book led her eventually to put pen to paper when she was twenty-four years old. She received a BA in English literature from George Washington University and an MA in humanities from St. John's University.

Goldberg has painted for as long as she has written, and her paintings can be seen in Living Color: A Writer Paints Her World and Top of My Lungs: Poems and Paintings. They can also be viewed at the Ernesto Mayans Gallery on Canyon Road in Sante Fe.

A dedicated teacher, Goldberg has taught writing and literature for the last thirty-five years. She also leads national workshops and retreats, and her schedule can be accessed via her website: nataliegoldberg.com

In 2006, she completed with the filmmaker Mary Feidt a one-hour documentary, Tangled Up in Bob, about Bob Dylan's childhood on the Iron Range in Northern Minnesota. The film can be obtained on Amazon or the website tangledupinbob.com.

Goldberg has been a serious Zen practitioner since 1974 and studied with Katagiri Roshi from 1978 to 1984.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

115 of 127 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Writing Classic, April 24, 2004

By 

Kay Porterfield - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within (Paperback)

Natalie Goldberg's insights about writing as a spirtual practice are just as valid today as they were in 1986 when this book was first published. Her suggestions to writers work, both for beginning writers and for writers who depend on words in order to make a living. I recommend this book to the emerging writers I mentor as a must-have reference second only to a good dictionary.

As a professional writer who has written over 20 books and 500 magazine articles, I've given Writing Down the Bones away several times after mistakenly deciding that I'd outgrown it. Just as often I've had to go out and buy another copy to remind myself that there's more to the writing life than rejections, and royalties. Every time I reread it, I find something new. Last year I read Goldberg's memoir, Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America, which provides insights about how she came to her beliefs about writing and spirituality. I suggest reading both books.

364 of 418 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Mixed Bag of Bones, December 5, 2001

By 

J. Jones "petrijones" (Indy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within (Pocket Classics) (Paperback)

I align myself more with the negative reviews of this book. It's easy to get caught up in some of the philosophical warm-fuzzy rhetoric of Ms. Goldberg. Akin to watching Oprah pull at an audience's heartstrings, Ms. Goldberg pulls readers in with story after story trumpeting the same message of writing from the heart. The initial reaction is to feel that there's nothing to question about what Ms. Goldberg says.

When I purchased the book, I saw nothing to indicate that it was specific to one particular form of writing, but after reading it, I feel that the author speaks much more to poetry than other forms of writing. The author on several occasions admonishes us to write in the moment and not dwell on ideas we've had in the past. She relates an experience of one student who had a fully-formed idea while out jogging but couldn't reproduce it when s/he got home to the blank page. Goldberg went into a spiel about how we should just let go of those thoughts that are not inspired or conceived in the moment that we sit down to write. That's where I have a fundamental disagreement with her and feel her philosophy becomes almost destructive to new writers. Perhaps poetry functions that way. Perhaps someone has to have that spontaneous quality about their work in order for it to be fresh and exciting. I don't know. I'm not a poet. However, for novels, short stories, and longer works, you would be a fool to let great ideas get away. Personally, I like to let some of those ideas percolate for weeks and even years. Yes, we mature and our perspectives change, but in a lot of cases that only means that we can approach a subject in a different way as we grow older. It doesn't make the subject any better or worse to write about.

Bottom line: I came away from the book with mixed feelings. In my opinion she crossed over the line of reason too often in the book to put forth her spiritual views. It was like a one day seminar that gets you pumped up, but then you get home and review your notes, and realize, sadly, that it was mainly hype with very little substance. I can summarize her tome with three bullet points: Be true to thine ownself. Always observe the world around you. Make writing a habit in your life.

121 of 136 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It's a good book, but overrated., December 28, 1999

By 

Andy Babb (Northern Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within (Pocket Classics) (Paperback)

A few months ago, around the time when I bought Goldberg's 'Writing Down the Bones', I was just starting to consider myself a serious writer. At first, I was attracted to Goldberg's warm and friendly voice and I felt like a member of her free-spirited writing posse, along for the magic carpet ride, venturing to far away cafes. I once thought of this book in the same frame of mind that so many kind, uncritical reviewers here have; as a kind of 'writer's bible.' Now that I am a few months older and wiser, I am able to see that the book is just a string of well-meaning encouragements that when putting pen-to-paper, are not as instrumental and helpful as you might think. One good thing happened as a result of my reading this book; I have made writing a practice, using notebooks as Natalie suggested.

The best, and if I may say, most fruitful and promising path to good writing is reading the words of those who have walked before us. Read and absorb the styles of others, THEN let the pen write directly and honestly from your heart. Write your own 'writer's bible.'