Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 808.2
EAN: 9781931229173
Edition: 1
ISBN: 1931229171
Label: Invisible Cities Press Llc
Languages: Array
Manufacturer: Invisible Cities Press Llc
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: 2002-05-01
Publisher: Invisible Cities Press Llc
Studio: Invisible Cities Press Llc

For any writer who has felt daunted by the demands of the daily battle with the page, Word Work provides reassurance and insight. Appealing to your head and heart, award-winning fiction writer Bruce Holland Rogers offers understanding and practical advice on facing a writer's difficulties. Personal stories drawn from two decades of writing experience alternate with psychological theory and anecdotes from the lives of other established writers. Unlike most writing books, Word Work doesn't just offer therapy for those times when things aren't going well; instead, it presents hands-on things you can do to jump-start the process and get the words flowing again. Refreshingly heretical, Rogers gives the advice other writing books don't touch: Maybe you should quit your day job, whatever the risks. Maybe procrastination is good for you and your work. Maybe your partner really is hurting your writing. You'll find original insights into the nature of writer's block, the benefits of writerly friendships, and a sure-fire cure for envy. Rogers helps you through the minefields of criticism, rejection, and money (or lack thereof!) while demonstrating techniques for feeling successful and inspired even when the day's writing isn't going well. Funny, thoughtful, and always lively, Word Work will give any writer, beginner or pro, a road map to greater productivity, confidence, and satisfaction.
In Word Work, Bruce Holland Rogers writes not about how to write, or how to publish, but about how to be a writer. Claiming to be "extraordinarily gifted with neuroses, even for a writer," Rogers is well-practiced in such writerly pursuits as procrastination, self-doubt, and rejection. Thus, he is perfectly able to write from experience. Rogers's tone is friendly, anecdotal, low-key. In each essay, he contemplates some aspect of the writing life, from writer's block (for which he recommends "atomizing" a writing project, by breaking it down into minute parts) to writing rituals; from quitting one's day job ("depends on how important writing is to you and how seriously you take your own death") to writing workshops. You can almost see him holding up some aspect of the writing life--procrastination, say--between his fingertips and his thumb, turning and examining it from all angles, then musing about how to deal with it. Good news: there are benefits, he discovers, to such impediments as depression, negative thinking, and trying to write with children in the house. --Jane Steinberg

Customer Rating:
Summary: Not your typical how-to-write book
Comment: Not your typical how-to-write book, but rather as the subtitle indicates, how-to survive and thrive as a writer. As I read, chapter to chapter, there were numerous times when I felt as if the author was speaking directly to me. All of the time, I felt I was receiving sage advice from someone who had been there, done that and come out the other side; someone further along the path willing to take a moment and share from his own struggles and successes in overcoming the various problems writers encounter on their writing and publishing journeys.

This is book is going on my books-on-writing keeper shelf. I highly recommend it to anyone who writes or wants to write.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: Liberation from your writing demons.
Comment: Of all the books I've read on writing, and there have been many, this is the one that addressed my real problem; my fear of not being able to summon up enough self-desipline to write my story. If this describes you...read this book. With the loving approach of a kind-hearted surgeon, Rogers gently pulls back the layers of writer's angst to uncover the size and shape of your particular "tumor". He then gives you, not feel-good pep talks, but practical excercises that liberate you from your black mass. I'm confident I will finish my book and be published, and when I am, Bruce Holland Rogers will be listed in my acknowledgements.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: BizCoach from Virginia
Comment: One of my goals is to read every book on writing. I'm into my fourth year. There are very few books now that catch me by surprise and say something different. Rogers' book,

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: The Pathos of the writer..
Comment: Book from a professional fantasy-writer and teacher (creative writing). The book contains columns, with advice how to avoid the slushpile of daily chores and keep at it, keep following the serious urge to write. This book adresses the possible emotional and psychological needs of the would-be-writer who wants to endure and stick to his writing.
As this is a book of columns, pieces which appeared earlier in a serialized form, there are some minor points which the reader needs to remember when using Bruge Rogers book as a guide to a writers existence.. Writing as the ancient rethorians maintained is as much about grammar, logic and ethos as it is about pathos (emotions).
Many aspiring authors do not lack ideas, but they do not know how to express themselves, or have not gained mastery of language as a working tool.
A book to buy if you are not looking for a work on the art of writing, mastery of language, style and the logic of building a narrative.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: Inspired to survive and thrive by a beginning writer
Comment: As a beginner who has been trying to stop procastinating, and start writing - I'd almost given up hope. After two years and having read at least a dozen how-to books on the writing craft, I gained a lot of knowledge on how to write. After reading Word Work I finally gained the knowledge that allowed me to write. In Word Work, Bruce Holland Rogers takes your fears and concerns about writing and buries them. He explained why I was procastinating and gave me the techniques to overcome it. Rogers takes all the excuses we give ourselves about why we can't find time to write and he shoots them down one by one.

This book is a must for all of you who say: "One day I'm going to write a novel", and for those of you who have lost your way. I highly recommend it

---