The Write Brain
I admittedly have an addiction to books. My crack house is Barnes & Noble or Half Priced Books (and hopefully soon Portland's very own Powell's). I can't resist the temptation to sift through shelves and shelves of words on paper. New car smell has nothing on the scent of a new (and even aged) book. I also have an addiction for books on writing. I've come across many that have been nothing more than 135 pages of "writers write" and have wished for my money back. Yes, I know that's what writers do; that's why we are called writers. Yet there is something to be said for that 135 pages of drivel telling me that writers write because often I do quite the opposite.
Wanting to get back into the daily writing swing of things (which as of Day 3 in 2008 I have successfully done), I turned to my collection of writing books in what honestly was an attempt to procrastinate on writing and instead just READ about writing instead. I pulled down a book that I'd had since my autumn trip to Seattle titled The Write Brain Workbook by Bonnie Neubauer. Much to my surprise the reading part took all of two minutes and she even says in the two minute introduction that her book was not one about reading about writing but actually one to get me to actually write. What a concept! There are 366 exercises. One for each day of the year (and that extra, luckily, is there since it's a Leap Year) and are labeled as such. Day One had me thinking about being a gerbil in a wheel, a five year old with pig tails on a carousel who almost lost my cajun lunch and ending in a photo booth to have a keepsake of where I've been and where I'm going. Neubauer did it. She tricked me into writing. I look forward to being tricked tomorrow, too.
Be sure to check this out. Definitely a writing book worth the paper it's printed on!
Find out more about Bonnie's work at http://www.bonnieneubauer.com