Customer Reviews

A Writer's Book of Days: A Spirited Companion and Lively Muse for the Writing Life

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you want to be a writer, you have to write. You can't just think about writing or dream that someday you may put words down on paper. You also can't expect that you'll sit down and in three weeks you'll have the next great American novel. No, you have to write.
A Writer's Book of Days looks to create a writing habit. Writing needs to be done everyday, a regular writing appointment so to speak. Pen to paper. Write to write, not necessarily working on one particular piece but writing whatever happens to be on your mind, without editing or judgements. In the process, you will learn about how you write, your writing style, and what you have to say to the world.

A Writer's Book of Days is a wonderful resource for those dreaming of becoming a writer. It gives them a place to start and encourages them to practice and play with words. I think it also teaches them the important lesson that good writing comes in cycles and spurts.

Judy Reeves has written a brilliant and inspiring book filled with writing prompts, suggestions and exercises which should be a part of every writer's desk set.

This book is filled with a year's worth of writing material. Each month begins with a guideline like, "Keep Writing," and, "Kiss Your Frogs," then offers daily writing topics, tips and suggestions for meeting the life of a writer. Reeves writes each chapter with inspirational eagerness making those days of writers block seem like history. Her directions are easy to follow, her ideas are fun and inventive and her tips make good sense. A must have for every serious writer!

Whether you are a novice writer or an experienced author, a blocked writer or one whose words are flowing, there is something in this book for you. The structure Reeves employs is useful: for each day of the year there is a writing "prompt" to jump-start one's writing ("Write about someone who sinned." "You are in a motel room..." "This is what she said."). For each of the twelve months, there is a series of essays about scores of topics, including tools for writing practice, writing from the senses, dancing with your shadows, telling secrets, the writing life, honoring yourself as a writer, imagination, and much, much more. And Reeves has packed the book full of inspiring quotes from famous writers, unusual facts about authors, and tactics to use to keep on writing and for improving one's craft.

Whether you use this book on a daily basis or as a periodic stepping-off point, there will be something in it to inspire and motivate. I highly recommend it to anyone wishing to try new ideas and to grow as a writer. ~Lori L. Lake, author of Stepping Out, Different Dress, Gun Shy, Under The Gun, and Ricochet In Time, and reviewer for Midwest Book Review, Golden Crown Literary Society's The Crown, The Independent Gay Writer, The Gay Read, and Just About Write.

Judy Reeves is a superb teacher and I have taken courses with her for many years. In truth, it was Judy who inspired me to pursue this creative endeavor.
Her multiple strategies for both writing alone and joining write groups are inspirational. Judy offers practical advise. At the same time she encourages anyone who wants to write to reach for the stars.

As an author and writing teacher, I own scores of books on both the art and the craft of writing. Too many of them make the process of putting pen to page seem intimidating. Judy Reeve's book is the best of its kind. Just flipping through it makes you feel like writing. Lovely layout, margin notes, quotes by famous and not-so-famous people, and many, many writing prompts to get your juices and your pen flowing onto paper.
Hurrah!

It just so happens that one of the few bad reviews of this book is way off base. The reviewer said that in the amount of time a writer spent on doing the exercises in the book, a person could already have their novel written, insinuating that the advice given was a waste of time. Well, it just so happens that I used the prompts in the book to write my novel. And now my novel is done. I owe a huge debt to Judy Reeves and her prompts. It kept my pen to the page. What she says truly works and I highly recommend it to other writers. I wish I could rate it 10 stars.

Not quite but almost worthless. There is no advice here beyond common sense. A friend gave me this as a gift and after reading through half of it I realized that I could be writing my book instead of reading this nonsense. So here is MY advice to other writers:

1. Quit reading these stupid "how to write" books. Either you can or you can't.
2. Pick up the pen or sit at the keyboard and write something. These books only give you excuses of why your "muse" isn't having a good day so you can't do it unless someone takes your sweet little hand and walks you across the street.
3. If you spent the same amount of time writing something productive instead of the typical "excersizes" found in these books, you'd have a complete manuscript of your own by now.
4. Use common sense. To write, you have to write regularly. It is a job. Do it, and quit whining.

I have to agree with the other reviewer abount not liking the stab at the romance genre and several other things mentioned. The romance genre is a great place for a writer to get published and be introduced to the business. And writing by hand slows most people down. You think faster than you can write it on paper.

Please note that the About The Author statement in this book states that the author is at work on her first novel. Her only other experience is in "writer's practice groups" and in an anthology of those practice groups. So in short, she has no experience aside from this book, yet she is trying to tell writers how to do it. Bravo! That takes guts.

I was going to give it two stars until I just read the About The Author. Now I would give it zero but Amazon won't let me.

I've owned and read more than a handful of books on the craft of writing and I've yet to take one seriously. The advice given is all well and good, usually well intentioned, but hardly ever applies to its audience. Really, one more book telling me to play the "what if" game is the last thing I need. And, in all honesty, I can't say that the advice and anecdotes recorded in *A Writer's Book of Days* is all that different.

~However~, this book does provide a few things that others don't. It's an enjoyable read. If you want to find out which authors wrote while in the bathtub then, by all means, you must own this book. But more than that, the prompts in this book are actually helpful.

Sometimes all you need is a single thought, a startling image, to have an idea that you may have otherwise never found. Reeves simplifies her promts, allowing the writer to do the work, by giving us a word or at most a phrase to use as a springboard. I have consistently found that they do get you writing. And, really, that was all I wanted this book to do for me.

As one whose interest (and publication experience) is in literary fiction and not category fiction (such as - and in particular - romance), I found this book incredibly helpful.

There are two possible approaches: you can do the prompts as journal entries that directly reflect your personal experience, or you can take them on as creative writing prompts. I chose the latter and have stockpiled several snippets of fiction (description, dialogue, scenes) that can be built into larger works. My usual approach with them is each morning to try to write fiction for each prompt, but for some, I've tried poetry, lists, and occasionally, journal entries.

As for the rest of the book, I'd strongly reccomend first reading Scott Edelstein's "100 Things a Writer Should Know," and in particular the part where he debunks all those "must" rules you find in writing books (including this one) such as "you must write by hand." I do and I don't, depending on what tools are available at the time.

All in all, though, I like the variety of prompts, and the fact there are so MANY. Not just one every day, but at 5 or 6 more per month with a few more sprinkled in-between. If you can't find something to write about in the midst of all that, you may need to check for your pulse.

I haven't worked with it yet, but reading it it seems to make sense, and I can't wait to dive into the excercises and prompts!