First I read Ann Lamott’s Bird by Bird. I love finding a good book about the writing life versus the craft. It’s inspiring and motivating, but it’s not the same old bullshit about Setting, Characters, Dialogue, Conflict, blah, blah-blah, blah-blah. I really kind of hate that. Anyone who’s read a damn book knows about setting and character and all. Not to say that they can all construct it effectively, but I doubt reading about it a million and one times helps anymore than reading effective story elements themselves.
But I digress.
Ann Lamott’s book is great, even if you’re not the slightest bit interested in writing yourself. It is laugh-out-loud funny. Hildie Block (Google her) recommended the book to me several years ago (wow, years?) and I should have read it immediately. But whatever, it’s doing me some good now.
It was a tough act to follow, I admit, so the next book on writing I read, while enjoyable, paled slightly in comparison. George Singleton’s Pep Talks, Warnings & Screeds: Indispensible Wisdom and Cautionary Advice for Writers was cute, funny, all that good stuff… Worth a read, I think, if you like these kinds of books. A quick read, anyway.
But here’s a question for you: I hear very frequently that you need to start with short stories. Don’t like short stories? Too f-ing bad, that’s how it works. But then more recently I have been hearing that there’s no real sense in starting with short stories if it’s not really your “thing.” If you’re dying to write a novel, there’s just as slim a chance of getting that in print as there is of getting a short story in print, so what the hell. Does anyone know any more about this than I do? (Ahem, Amy Shearn?)
