TIHFU #2 – Books on Writing

Some people will tell you that any writer who takes a class or reads books about writing isn’t a ‘real’ writer, that you can’t learn to be a writer, that you just are or you aren’t.

That’s bullshit. I will concede that you have to have the drive, the imagination, to write in the first place, but everyone has to start from scratch and learn and hone their craft, and why not read the advice of others while doing it? I didn’t emerge from my mother’s womb and immediately know everything there is to know about eyes, I’m studying it by listening to what other people can teach me about them, and reading books about them. I wasn’t born an orthoptist, the same way I wasn’t born a writer.

I love, love, love reading books about writing. Some of that is about absorbing advice, but after you’ve read a few there’s not a lot of difference between them. So why do I keep reading them? Because every time I get a new one and sit down with it, I feel motivated all over again by reading about how to improve my craft and how to use it.

There are some fantastic books out there and there are some crappy ones. And it’s entirely possible that what I dislike works fantastically for others. But I never pick up books with titles like ‘write a bestseller in a year’ or ‘how to make loads of money from your writing’. Because if you ask me, that comes from the quality of the writer, not some formula. Or at least, I want it to badly enough to want to make it through those woods by myself.

I’m going to be attending a course on ‘Rewriting and Editing for Authors’ at the university next month. I’ll let you know how that goes :)

Seriously, go to your bookshop or go to Amazon and pick up a book or two. Even if you feel like you know everything already. Because there’s always something you hadn’t thought of, or maybe it’ll get you all fired up the way it does me. It’s worth it.

On my bookshelf here with me right now:

Wannabe a Writer? by Jane Wenham-Jones
Creative Writing by Leach & Graham
The Way We Write – edited by Barbara Baker (this is a great book – interviews with bestselling authors of fiction, non-fiction, children’s fiction, poetry… you get the idea… about how they write, why, where, their trials and tribulations. Really fascinating reading.)

I have more at home, and loaned out to my friends, but I can’t recall their titles off the top of my head! I have been told that Stephen King's On Writing is very good, but I haven't read it. I've promised it to myself when I finish the first draft of my novel project. Here's to hoping that's soon!