March Book Review <3

Book review and this is not joke, I only read one book. 

I got this one from the book sale of withdrawn books from our local library. 

They have sales every now and again, but they also have a “free to a good home” shelf where they regularly put books that have been taken out of circulation. It felt good to actually make a donation since I tend to pick up one or two books every time I leave the library from the freebie shelf. 

I’d Rather be Writing, written by a writer who also teaches writing classes, is just what you would think. A book about writing and how to get it done. 

Marcia Golub has written several fiction books and does a lot of free-lance writings for magazines and publications. From her choice of humor in this book and the information she shared about the subject of her novels, I am not planning to look up her other works to read. 

This was, for me, more a text book with ideas on how to hone the craft of writing beyond what I do here. While I love this blog and enjoy writing thoughts and stories from the Journey, I do love to practice writing that stretches me to do more than just a diary kind of word working. 

I marked a couple dozen pages that had suggestions for writing exercises or ways to manage your time to become more discipline in writing. I will go through and jot these down in one of the bazillion journals I take notes in and then pass this along to a writer friend. 

True confession, near the end she talks about managing childcare and how to write when you have a full time job. Neither of these apply to me, so I skimmed a couple of chapters.

Is that cheating? 

I don’t know. 

I have been blessed to attend some writer conferences and I have a couple of good friends who are writers. I also have very wonderful friends and family who are not writers. I love all of them, need all of them and enjoy all of them. 

However; there is something about hearing another person who writes talk about some of the parts of that non-writers do not understand that makes me feel less odd and alone. 

This book was good for that. 

Unlike a book on history, science, politics or really an subject that is helping me learn more about things I am deficient in, I didn’t have to stop and go back over paragraphs to try and get the information to stick. 

It was a pleasant place of just encouraging me in something I am already doing. 

So if you are a writer, I would recommend the book with the caveat that there is some mild language and descriptions that are somewhat crude. Not awful, but not the way I talk or think so that’s just a small warning in case you do read it. 

I have a couple of books set out for April and will power through and try to do better! 

What are you reading these days?