Customer Reviews

So You Want To Write

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Most of the time, reading books about writing improves one's writing as much as reading *The Joy of Running* improves one's cardivascular system. I have taught fiction to undergrads, and I usually tell them to spend their time at the keyboard rather than reading how-to books, which tend to be either facile or studiously dreamy.

However, *So you want to write* is based on Piercy's and Wood's workshops and exercises, and while no book will substitute for a good workshop, this book is worth your time. The suggested exercises point one's writing in new directions. The analyses of fiction examples within the book elucidate what was done right as well as deliniate what in the passages should be revised. This is an excellent book for writers seeking to explore the craft and broaden their writing.

For writers who are serious about getting published, this book is extremely helpful. It covers everything from the emotional side of being a writer, to the nuts and bolts of submitting a manuscript. Primarily geared towards novelists and writers of memoir, it's also helpful to anyone who takes the art and craft of writing seriously and wants to learn from two successful writers who generously and warmly share their secrets with others.

Marge Piercy and Ira Wood have been around the block plenty of times, stubbornly making their living out of a love of writing. And a tough living it is, too. While bestselling authors can make megabucks, most writers earn their bread the hard way: "$124,000, and it took four years of my life." You do the math. Nevertheless, Wood and Piercy do not discourage the artist; instead they nurture with motherly advice on agents, and bittersweet tales, such as the story of "Kitchen Man", Wood's exemplary novel (excerpted in the appendix) that goes from campus favorite to out-of-print remainder in that too-short life cycle for so many excellent books.

There exercises, some to polish dialog, and my favorite exercise, a sort of checklist to get to know your characters that reads like a questionnaire for a dating service! There are anecdotes about other famous writing coaches, such as the story of a short novel that goes from coach Maxine Kumin to Joyce Carol Oates. Kunin advises the author that the work is going to be a short novella. "No, it's a short novel of 180 pages" declares Oates. When the manuscript was finished, Joyce then tells the author "Treat this as if you are going to die. And this is what you will leave behind." Pithy. Meaningful. This is good writing coaching. This is a warm, wonderful book especially for the memoir or fiction writer.

I have written books for years and can normally get myself past writer's block. The one time that it truly had me stumped, I turned to this book.

I am so glad that I did. The excercizes that they provide are wonderful. Although the theme seems to be more toward writing memoirs, the advice holds true for any fictional writer.

This is a great book for getting back on track. I would reccomend it to those who have written before and need a little reminder of where to begin. It may be too advanced for beginners.

Caterina Christakos
Author of How to Write a Children's Book in 30 Days or Less

I got this book to help me prepare for my next writing project: a novel. It was written by two people, and so they say "we" or "I". This makes the recounting of experiences a little awkward. I suspect that this was very close to being self-published, which is acceptable these days. Despite the typos and awkwardness, I got some useful perspective on writing from this book as well as homework. I would definately print a revision and polish it a little bit more if I were them.

I wont own this book until about 5 minutes after I write this Review. However, I have known of Marge Piercy for about 21 years--actually I bought my first book of hers Vida totally ignorant, but desperate and unemployed and really needing a book to escape into and buying Vida on a remaindered book table outside of a community college where I was then turned down for a temporary clerical job, a college I now teach writing at. I didn't know that Marge was someone from home, someone who came out of the same struggles and times that I came out, that over the years, long before I met her, I would keep running into people not just reading her work, but her doing her deeds had done good things for, important people in my life who would reel the clock back until I realized how many rooms and demonstrations I had shared with Marge.
Later, as I became a writer, I would run into writers who became my friends who kept telling me the good things, the quiet things, the unacknowledged things she had done for them, particularly minority writers made to feel out of place at writing colonies, writers organizations, working class originated people feeling out of place in stuffy phony poetry circles. Marge Piercy is a writer, Marge Piercy is a fighter.
This is going to be direct talk, from reality, as well as from the heart, direct talk for a master of poetry, three or four genres of fiction. I just know from knowing Marge and Ira and their work, that this is the kind of book I will probably be teaching in my classes, and living in my writing.
BUY THIS BOOK