Writing from the Inside Out: Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within [Paperback]

Dennis Palumbo (Author), Larry Gelbart (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471382663 | ISBN-13: 978-0471382669 | Publication Date: October 16, 2000 | Edition: 1

"Dennis Palumbo has great insight into a writer s psyche.... Every writer should have a shrink or this book. The book is cheaper."
—Gary Shandling, actor, comic, and writer

"wise, compassionate, and funny..."
—Aram Saroyan, poet and novelist

"Dennis Palumbo provides a sense of community in the isolation of writing, of knowing that we are not alone on this uncharted and privileged journey. He shows us that our shared struggles, fears, and triumphs are the very soul of the art and craft of writing."
—Bruce Joel Rubin, screenwriter, GhostandDeepImpact

Writer's block. Procrastination. Loneliness. Doubt. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Just plain...fear. What does it mean if you struggle with these feelings on a daily basis?It means you re a writer. Written with a unique empathy and deep insight by someone who is both a fellow writer and a noted psychotherapist, Writing from the Inside Out sheds light on the inner life of the writer and shows you positive new ways of thinking about your art and yourself. Palumbo touches on subjects ranging from writer s envy to rejection, from the loneliness of solitude to the joy of craft. Most of all, he leads you to the most empowering revelation of all that you are enough. Everything you need to navigate the often tumultuous terrain of the writer s path and create your best work is right there inside you.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"Dennis Palumbo has great insight into a writer?s psyche.... Every writer should have a shrink or this book. The book is cheaper." ?Gary Shandling, actor, comic, and writer

"wise, compassionate, and funny..." ?Aram Saroyan, poet and novelist

"Dennis Palumbo provides a sense of community in the isolation of writing, of knowing that we are not alone on this uncharted and privileged journey. He shows us that our shared struggles, fears, and triumphs are the very soul of the art and craft of writing." ?Bruce Joel Rubin, screenwriter, GhostandDeepImpact

Writer?s block. Procrastination. Loneliness. Doubt. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Just plain...fear. What does it mean if you struggle with these feelings on a daily basis?It means you?re a writer.Written with a unique empathy and deep insight by someone who is both a fellow writer and a noted psychotherapist, Writing from the Inside Out sheds light on the inner life of the writer and shows you positive new ways of thinking about your art?and yourself. Palumbo touches on subjects ranging from writer?s envy to rejection, from the loneliness of solitude to the joy of craft. Most of all, he leads you to the most empowering revelation of all?that you are enough. Everything you need to navigate the often tumultuous terrain of the writer?s path and create your best work is right there inside you.

About the Author

DENNIS PALUMBO, MA, MFT, is a licensed psychotherapist in private practice, specializing in creative issues. He cowrote the screenplay for the award-winning My Favorite Year and other films, numerous TV episodes and pilots, and the novel City Wars. Palumbo writes the highly popular "The Writer's Life" column in Written By, the magazine of the Writer's Guild of America, and his work helping writers has been profiled in Premiere magazine, the LA Times, and on CNN.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (October 16, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471382663
• ISBN-13: 978-0471382669
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #224,097 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Formerly a Hollywood screenwriter ("My Favorite Year," "Welcome Back, Kotter," etc.), DENNIS PALUMBO is now a licensed psychotherapist, specializing in creative issues. Author of "Writing From the Inside Out" (John Wiley), his first novel was a sci-fi thriller, "City Wars" (Bantam Books), before he turned to crime. His mystery fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, The Strand, and elsewhere, and is collected in "From Crime to Crime" (Tallfellow Press). His first mystery novel, "Mirror Image," is just out from Poisoned Pen Press.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Turned My Writer's Block Upside Down!, June 20, 2001

By 

Amerikangirl "ErikSue" (Camarillo, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Writing from the Inside Out: Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within (Paperback)

The first and sometimes only thing I read in the monthly Writers Guild of American Journal is Dennis Palumbo's column, so I knew I had to have this book. What I didn't know is how much it would help me. A successful TV person, I have been avoiding writing my first novel for years. Blocked. Totally. Although I thought I had heard all the advice, I had never heard anyone describe a block in the way Palumbo does. Turning it from a negative to a positive worked. I began to view the block as a stepping stone or a bridge (albeit a creaky, scary swinging bridge), rather than a concrete wall. In this way, I was finally able to stop beating myself up for the avoidance, and accept it as a part of the process. Lo and behold, book is done and the agent loves it! Thank you, Mr. Palumbo, for helping me write the thing I spent four years avoiding.

Also especially loved what Palumbo had to say about writers' envy of other successful writers. Until I read this, I thought it was my own dirty, little secret. Now I know that all the rest of you hope my books does as lousy as I hope yours does...

If you love to write, you'll like this book. If you hate to write, you may like it even more.

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HOW I SAVED $11,000, May 4, 2003

By 

Richard Setlowe (Toluca Lake, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Writing from the Inside Out: Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within (Paperback)

I've read this book three times, some sections four times. Most of the chapters were originally a series of monthly columns "The Writer's Life" by Dennis Palumbo that ran in the Writer's Guild of America magazine. Like most members of the WGA it was the first thing to which I turned, because it was indeed about my life, about writing my first novel, the occasional screenplay, and now that I am currently writing my sixth novel, this book is on my bed stand-which explains the third and fourth readings.
But "Writing from the Inside Out" is not a collection of old columns. Palumbo enhanced and rewrote the original material as an inspired book about the psyche of the writer and the creative process itself and how to nurture and sustain it when not only the outside world but your own mind appears to be thwarting you. For such a wise and insightful work it is often entertaining and a delight to read, no doubt because Palumbo was a successful TV sitcom and screenwriter who co-wrote "My Favorite Year" (not incidentally about a meshuggeneh TV writer) before answering the calling to be a psychotherapist specializing in creative issues. In his new profession he now enjoys an international rep.
The comic and comedy writer Gary Shandling comments in a blurb, "Every writer should have a shrink or this book. The book is cheaper."
Shandling is not joking. At Palumbo's current fees I estimate I have saved $11,000 each time I read this book thoughtfully chapter by chapter.
There are a few who criticize that "Writing from the Inside Out" makes the struggle to write seem too difficult. For them there is a bridge in lower Manhattan that runs from the Soho garrets of struggling writers to the trendy Brooklyn Heights residences of several acclaimed authors on which I can make them a very good deal. For a low comfortable down payment and easy monthly installments, this historic bridge can be yours.
For those with more realistic ambitions to be a writer, I commend this wise empowering book without reservation.

Richard Setlowe

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Doubt + Fear = Fulfilling Writing?, March 4, 2001

By 

Buster Maxwell / Writer, Performer, Producer (Pittsburgh PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Writing from the Inside Out: Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within (Paperback)

Think you're the only writer in the world wracked with self-doubt, insecurity, fear and loneliness? Think again. Writer/Therapist Dennis Palumbo reveals, with heart and humour, just how common these feelings are, and better yet, how they can furnish the real raw materials for fulfilling writing.

Through heartbreaking and inspiring stories from his own life and practice, he does nothing less than illuminate the path to every writer's essential, ongoing, transformative process. He even replicates sessions of client-therapist dialogue so clearly and beautifully that they make you sit up and say, "Hey, that's me he's talking to!"

This is a well-crafted book about the "doing" of writing, one that makes you proud to be a writer, makes you want to write better, and then gives you specific tools to do exactly that.