Books About Writing

 I write, I read, I read about writing.

 I think that books about writing are some of the strangest in the world. Also, yes, they can be extremely dry. I admit it! A writer can be witty and hilarious and profound, but ultimately a chapter about meter will follow a certain pattern, beat-for-beat (Yes, I feel clever for that). Luckily, I like meter very much. I bet that everybody likes some writing about writing. In an intro-level literature class, we all read an excerpt of Anne Lamott's book Bird by Bird, an essay called "Shitty First Drafts," and I can say with confidence that at least half of us genuinely enjoyed it, and another thirty percent valiantly pretended to. Half is not so bad for one assigned reading.

 Mary Oliver understands my burning need for examples in her poetry handbook, and graciously provides me with one every other page. Richard Hugo is not afraid of a monologue in Triggering Town, and I like him so much that I don't mind a whit. In Write Moves, Nancy Pagh has brevity pouring out of her ears-- or, erm, exactly as much as is appropriate.

My current favorite book about writing is the Wonderbook, which manages to be a guide, a series of essays, a list of prompts, an art collection, and basically anything else you could imagine, all within one convenient binding. Ah, I'm itching for a pencil just thinking about it! I love to write! There is nothing that reminds me of that so much as reading about how much someone else loves it, too.

 

Image from Jeff Vandermeer's "Wonderbook," the only assigned textbook that I ever read for fun.