Writer S Block

Discover the tricks that your brain uses to keep you from writing—and how to beat them. Do you: Want to write, but find it impossible to get started? Keep your schedules so full that you don’t have any time to write? Wait until the last minute to write, even though you know you could do a better job if you gave yourself more time? Suddenly remember ten other things that you need to do whenever you sit down to write? Sabotage your own best efforts with lost files, missed deadlines, or excessive self-criticism? The good news is that you’re not lazy, undisciplined, or lacking in willpower, talent or ambition. You just need to learn what’s going on inside your brain, and harness the power of brain science to beat resistance and develop a productive writing habit. In Around the Writer’s Block, Rosanne Bane-- a creativity coach and writing teacher for more than 20 years-- uses the most recent breakthroughs in brain science to help us understand, in simple, clear language, where writing resistance comes from: a fight-or-flight response hard-wired into our brain, which can make us desperate to flee the sources of our anxieties by any means possible. Bane’s three-part plan, which has improved the productivity of thousands of writers, helps you develop new reliable writing habits, rewire the brain’s responses to the anxiety of writing, and turn writing from a source of stress and anxiety into one of joy and personal growth.

""Writer's Block" is an organic whole. Leader makes connections and shows differences among the various sections and the different theories. I found the book to be a rich intellectual experience."--Ben Davis, "Wilson Library Bulletin."

“Writing is spooky,” according to Norman Mailer. “There is no routine of an office to keep you going, only the blank page each morning, and you never know where your words are coming from, those divine words.” In The Spooky Art, Mailer discusses with signature candor the rewards and trials of the writing life, and recommends the tools to navigate it. Addressing the reader in a conversational tone, he draws on the best of more than fifty years of his own criticism, advice, and detailed observations about the writer’s craft. Praise for The Spooky Art “The Spooky Art shows Mailer’s brave willingness to take on demanding forms and daunting issues. . . . He has been a thoughtful and stylish witness to the best and worst of the American century.”—The Boston Globe “At his best—as artists should be judged—Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure. There is enough of his best in this book for it to be welcomed with gratitude.”—The Washington Post “[The Spooky Art] should nourish and inform—as well as entertain—almost any serious reader of the novel.”—Baltimore Sun “The richest book ever written about the writer’s subconscious.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer “Striking . . . entrancingly frank.”—Entertainment Weekly Praise for Norman Mailer “[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation.”—The New York Times “A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent.”—The New Yorker “A devastatingly alive and original creative mind.”—Life “Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance.”—The New York Review of Books “The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book.”—Chicago Tribune “Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream.”—The Cincinnati Post

Being a writer is not just about typing. It's also about surviving the roller-coaster of the creative journey. Self-doubt, fear of failure, the need for validation, perfectionism, writer's block, comparisonitis, overwhelm, and much more. This book offers a survival strategy and ways to deal with them all. Large Print edition.

“An original, fascinating, and beautifully written reckoning . . . of that great human passion: to write.”—Kay Redfield Jamison, national bestselling author of An Unquiet Mind Why is it that some writers struggle for months to come up with the perfect sentence or phrase while others, hunched over a keyboard deep into the night, seem unable to stop writing? In The Midnight Disease, neurologist Alice W. Flaherty explores the mysteries of literary creativity: the drive to write, what sparks it, and what extinguishes it. She draws on intriguing examples from medical case studies and from the lives of writers, from Franz Kafka to Anne Lamott, from Sylvia Plath to Stephen King. Flaherty, who herself has grappled with episodes of compulsive writing and block, also offers a compelling personal account of her own experiences with these conditions. “[Flaherty] is the real thing . . . and her writing magically transforms her own tragedies into something strange and whimsical almost, almost funny.”—The Washington Post “This is interesting, heated stuff.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Brilliant . . . [a] precious jewel of a book . . . that sparkles with some fresh insight or intriguing fact on practically every page.”—Seattle Post-Intelligencer “Flaherty mixes memoir, meditation, compendium and scholarly reportage in an odd but absorbing look at the neurological basis of writing and its pathologies . . . Writers will delight in the way information and lore are interspersed.”—Publishers Weekly

Anxious to write that Great American Novel but don't know where to begin? Help is on the way with our Writer's Block! This guide to beating writer's block comes packaged in the shape of an actual block: 3" x 3" x 3", with 672 pages and more than 200 photographs throughout. Next time you're stuck, just flip open The Writer's Block to any page to find an idea or exercise that will jump-start your imagination. Many of these assignments come straight from the creative writing classes of celebrated novelists like Ethan Canin, Richard Price, Toni Morrison, and Kurt Vonnegut: Joyce Carol Oates explains how she uses running to destroy writer's block. Elmore Leonard describes how he often finds ideas just by reading the newspaper. E. Annie Proulx discusses finding inspiration at garage sales. Isabel Allende tells why she always begins a new novel on January 8th. John Irving explains why he prefers to write the last sentence first. Fresh, fun, and irreverent, The Writer's Block also features advice from contemporary editors and literary agents, lessons from the awful novels of Joan Collins and Robert James Waller, a filmography of movies concerning writer's block (e.g., The Shining, Barton Fink), and countless other surprises. With this chunky little book at your side, you may never experience writer's block again!

Presents a personal program for overcoming the problems of writer's block, offering a series of techniques, exercises, and checklists designed to inspire creativity and the writing process.

"A wordless graphic novel in which twelve-year-old Marisol must adapt to a new life 1960s Brooklyn after her parents send her to the United States from Cuba to keep her safe during Castro's regime."--