Wild Mind, Living the Writer's Life, by Natalie Goldberg
Much like her previous book, Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg's Wild Mind contains short chapters and exercises about writing. They are not traditional exercises, they are things that usually begin "try this." She's not concerned with the plotting, manuscript formating or trying-to-find an agent aspects of some writing books, but the getting the thoughts down on paper type of writing. She does a lot a free writing, which is stream of consciousness writing without worrying about content or form. And every chapter has a nugget of a good idea at its core. This book leads you to write "wild" and get rid of the things holding you back.
I haven't done any of the exercises (yet!) but there were so many interesting topics here that I think I'll start a new series of post discussing them. I'll label them "Goldberg Variations."
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