Review: Defeat the blank page with homework (something I never expected to say)
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 21, 2013
I received a free copy as a blogging friend of the author, but this is an honest review.I'm not normally a writer who enjoys writing craft books based on exercises or prompts - That’s because I normally have no problems in having plenty of ideas to start off stories, and generally as a novel writer – where the writing process is much slower – I have too many! Being forced into coming up with new ideas as a creative writing exercise is an impact to my normal writing process, not a help.So, despite having a need to improve my writing knowledge, via many self-study sessions, taking short internet courses, and having a huge collection of writing craft books - I tend to avoid ones that expect us to take the time to do homework.BUT. This month I've been struggling within NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I had intentions to write a lot of short or flash fiction, but that was scarpered with a lack of enough ideas. I moved onto a novel I had an idea for, which has been going well, but without the preparation and rough outlining I needed to have done beforehand, I have now found myself stopped short with a lack of ideas to get through the middle act of the novel.Enter Back to Creative Writing School - it appears to be kizmet. The author points out in the introduction -" This book is about writing."About defeating the blank page. It’s about taking risks, experimenting, giving yourself the freedom to make mistakes. It’s about finding ideas and developing them."Weaving stories in your head while you travel to work or sit daydreaming is not writing. Something happens when you put words into the hard concrete of type or the softer clay of pen or pencil."The author is right. I randomly selected a few of the lessons and did the homework *shiver* and my stories are back on the way. I have defeated that blank page, and the stories are getting away from being stuck in my head.