Writing true and Elizabeth Berg...

When I opened this book, the book flap was folded over to the third chapter.  It was...another unfinished read.  I turned back to the title page and found the inscription from Elizabeth Berg to my daughter Lissa, and then, coincidentally, a picture of my youngest daughter Amy fell from the book.  She must be six, standing in front of the window with all her Care Bears stickers lined neatly along the bottom edge. She looks proud.  I just can't remember taking that picture, yet as I look at her face, I can hear her young voice, clearly, echoing in my heart. 

Was it I who was reading this book and left it to return another day? ...was it Lissa? or perhaps Amy?  It doesn't really matter now.  As I turn the pages, I find Elizabeth is writing more for fiction writers.  She provides many exercises to toggle the creative juices...dialogue, description, observations of people, places, events.  Good writers of fiction must have enhanced powers of observation interlaced with creativity and supported by their strong command of the language.  I haven't tried fiction...nor have the inclination to do so.  I think of Mary Margaret...she loves creative writing and works hard at it.  Perhaps she will enjoy this book when I finish...

As I read, I find that so many of her suggestions also ring true for the nonfiction writer and the blogger.  So many pages are dog-eared before I finish.  

• …so that there is an external safe place for your writing, even as there should be an internal one. We all need safe places, and I believe we can all profit from a little rich secrecy, especially the kind that is held inside ourselves. We need to nourish and encourage our creative selves and we need to learn to take chances. The best way to do that is to have a place where there is no judgment, where anything goes. As we get older, it can be harder and harder to find those places. We have to create them for ourselves.  (38)
  
• I believe that one of your most important jobs as a writer is to be true to yourself, to honor your own notions of what you believe is important to your life and to that of others, If you love history, use it in your work. If you love mystery, do the same….Write what you love. The knowledge can be learned; the passion can’t be—it’s either there or it isn’t. (43)
  
• I believe in order to write passionately, you need to catch fire. You need to get carried along by something stronger and wilder and braver and perhaps truer –than your normal self…You need to be blind and yet see extraordinarily clearly at the same time; you have to feel very nearly unstoppable. (86)

Chapters on writing articles for magazines inspire me and her advice for working with editors is invaluable.  Her recommended reading How to Write a Book Proposal by Michael Larsen is not in my Library and I cannot help but look at Amazon.  After all, it is only $10.87 and I can get it by Tuesday.  I resist the urge and dash off an interlibrary loan request to my Library.  I am also surprised that we do not have Amy Bloom's Come to me but I know I can find it at the public library.  I quickly add this and Love invents us to my wishlist to read next year.  I move my "dog-ears" to my journal so that I will not forget her words.