Reviews for Now Write!: Fiction Writing Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers

The average rating for Now Write!: Fiction Writing Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-09-03 00:00:00 Christian Fibich Now Write! is a useful addition to the bookshelf for writers, especially those who also teach creative writing. I immediately started using some of the exercises in my fiction class. I had a moment where I laughed out loud. Amidst the usual exercises on character and point of view there was this advice from Kathleen Spivak in her "The Writing Exercise: A Recipe." Ingredients and Preparation Before bedtime, pick up the alarm clock. Set it to ring two hours earlier than your usual wake-up time. Sleep. Or don't. But get up anyway. Put a mug of coffee, tea, or other comfort in your hands. Now go to your desk immediately. Sit down. Look dazed. Open the computer-mind. Work on a writing project--somehow for two hours. Don't complain. (Spivak 64). She goes on to describe doing for it a year, comparing the writing project to a "dominatrix" and a "virus that takes hold." I loved it. Such brutal practicality amused me. Art will always require sacrifice as she makes clear. For teachers of writing chapters like Crystal Wilkinson's "Birth of a Story in an Hour or Less" make this collection of essays well worth the price of admission.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-06-18 00:00:00 William Madden Sherry Ellis (ed.), Now Write!: Fiction Exercises from Today's Best Teachers and Writers (Tarcher, 2006) Exactly what it says it is: a compendium of writing exercises from various folks. Ellis herself is entirely transparent aside from a brief introduction; from there, it's the writers and nothing but. Needless to say, in a book like this, especially with so many different contributors (there are eighty-two different sections), you're bound to have some inconsistency. As well, it sometimes seems as if there's just too much of a good thing; we go right from one exercise into the next, with only the barest separation into chapters designed to highlight different emphases in the exercises. I think most people will find a handful, or maybe a dozen, exercises they like and continually come back to those, rather than utilizing everything in the book. ***