Ready for Takeoff! A Winning Process for Launching Your Engineering Career Book

Wannabe A Writer? is a how-to book put through the Bridget Jones filter. It's pitched hard at an audience of middle-aged, middle-class women who might write a novel if they weren't so fond of that second glass of wine every night.

Though intended as a rip-roaring antidote to stale writing books, the result is only occasionally amusing. (Maybe if it would be funnier if I were drunk? Sorry, I'm allergic to wine.) There are some useful writing tips to be found, along with cheering anecdotes from Wenham-Jones's writer friends. (I recall especially the writer who tied her leg to the table when she sat down to write. Or, indeed, the one who scoured charity shops for a hat his novel's hero could wear - and then proceeded to wear it as he was writing.)

Unfortunately, there's also a lot of dreck included in the book. A long chapter on dieting? Uhm, thanks, but that's not what I was looking for. One can't help but feel that Wenham-Jones - almost the definition of a mid-list author - is not really qualified to advise on writing. I may have disagreed with much of Stephen King's advice in On Writing, but I can't begrudge his credentials. Wenham-Jones, on the other hand, might make a perfectly amiable dinner party companion, but as a writing expert, she's unconvincing.