7 Magical Writing Guides to Summon Your Creativity
Writers are a superstitious breed. We often require our preferred conditions (time of day, a favorite pen, the chair by the window, a cup of coffee) and convince ourselves they are essential to summon the muse or open creative flow or whatever metaphor we’ve chosen to describe the indescribable act of creative work, of producing something from nothing — the magic.
When the writing doesn’t flow as it should, we start to wonder what’s wrong.
The story was going along nicely yesterday, so why can’t I string a sentence together today? If only the sun were shining, I’d be in a better mood for writing. Or I could wait until stress with my family dies down. Maybe I need more coffee. Or maybe I’m not really cut out for writing.
See how slippery the slope becomes? In truth, nothing is wrong with you. You haven’t lost some magical creative ability.
Writers have a natural creative rhythm we can trust and follow.
In the meantime, you might need to practice patience. You might need to write awkwardly for a while. Or you might need rest, a long walk, a chance to step away from the page.
Until the magic returns.
By magic, I mean the part of creative work that mystifies us. The process that seems to follow no rational rhyme nor reason for when it appears or disappears.
The books listed here are guides to recovering and managing creativity when it eludes us. They are not focused on practical writing tasks like where to put the comma or how to navigate a successful book launch. They are less about practical tips and more about heartening the tired creative soul.
These guides are focused on the misunderstood part of the writing life.
The unknown parts. The magic.
The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
Julia Cameron’s classic 12-week course for recovering creativity was first published in 1992. I wish I had read it back then while I was still in high school. I might have had the courage to pursue my writing career much earlier than I did.
When I finally discovered it in 2007, I felt like I had stepped into a new world. No one in my life talked about writing and creativity the way Julia Cameron did.
But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano / act / paint / write a decent play?”
Yes . . . the same age you will be if you don’t.
If I had read that encouragement at a young age, I would have given serious attention to my writing much sooner. I wouldn’t have worried so much what other people thought.
It is impossible to get better and look good at the same time.
I could have understood that learning to write is a growing process, a journey. I didn’t need to do it perfectly.
Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace, and power in it.
Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
Although I first learned the influence fear has on creativity in The Artist’s Way, I didn’t truly understand how to manage it until I read these essays by David Bayles and Ted Orland.
In large measure becoming an artist consists of learning to accept yourself, which makes your work personal, and in following your own voice, which makes your work distinctive.
So much of the help this book (and every book on this list) offers comes in the immense relief of discovering that I am not the only writer experiencing these overwhelming and sometimes uncomfortable emotions.
Most writers experience fear. And most writers learn to accept it and continue their work.
If You Want to Write: A Book About Art, Independence, and Spirit
Brenda Ueland wrote this timeless guide in 1938, and it is still relevant in the current millenium.
Ueland was the first writer I discovered who shared my long-held belief that anyone can write —and that everyone should write.
In fact, she put into words so many of my core beliefs seventy years before I formed them my own mind. When I read this book as a college creative writing student, struggling to find my voice, I felt as though she spoke directly to me.
I want to assure you with all earnestness, that no writing is a waste of time — no creative work where the feelings, the imagination, the intelligence must work. With every sentence you write, you have learned something. It has done you good. It has stretched your understanding.
My favorite passage in the book is when Ueland describes how she never uses sickness as an excuse not to write. She maintains that daily writing will improve your health, and even insists that when she felt she was coming down with the flu, a few hours of writing revitalized her.
Think of that the next time you’re finding excuses to avoid your own writing.
Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within
Until I read Natalie Goldberg’s guide to writing, I never understood why the great ideas I had for stories never came out right on the page.
People often say, “I was walking along [or driving, shopping, jogging] and I had this whole poem go through my mind, but when I sat down to write it, I couldn’t get it to come out right.” I never can either. Sitting to write is another activity. Let go of walking or jogging and the poem that was born then in your mind. This is another moment. Write another poem. Perhaps secretly hope something of what you thought a while ago might come out, but let it come out however it does. Don’t force it.
What a relief to understand that this was normal! And that the act of writing is different from the acts of pseudo-writing I was practicing: thinking about writing, talking about writing, daydreaming, outlining, researching.
I learned from Natalie Goldberg that the action of writing comes first, followed by the inspiration and the motivation. Not the other way around.
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame is the author of the most recently published guide on this list. Like the other authors here, she blends personal stories with indispensable writing advice.
It seems to me that the less I fight my fear, the less it fights back. If I can relax, fear relaxes, too.
Gilbert also writes with the plain-spoken practicality that I love. And she gets it. She knows that writing is so important to the writer but that we must also be aware that writing is not important at all.
You’re not required to save the world with your creativity. Your art not only doesn’t have to be original, in other words, it also doesn’t have to be important. For example, whenever anyone tells me that they want to write a book in order to help other people I always think ‘Oh, please don’t. Please don’t try to help me.’ I mean it’s very kind of you to help people, but please don’t make it your sole creative motive because we will feel the weight of your heavy intention, and it will put a strain upon our souls.
Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity
A reminder from Mr. Ray Bradbury, iconic science fiction writer, to always stay true to your own particular brand of writing, regardless of critics:
I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.
The quality of all writing is so subjective, and readers so diverse in their tastes, that writers can never know what might be popular and what might face rejection.
You might as well write what comes naturally, and if you’re unappreciated, pack up your dinosaurs and try elsewhere.
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Anne Lamott’s memoir/writing guide is most famous for her advice to accept “shitty first drafts.” But the most helpful guidance I took from her book came through the personal story from which she took her title.
Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve told myself to “take it bird by bird” when I’m faced with an unfinished chapter, a late blog post, or thousands and thousands of words left to finish a novel.
Bird by bird, word by word, I have finished those chapters, blog posts, and novels — work for which I might not have found the fortitude had I not read Lamott’s guide, or any of the other books on this list.
Others?
If you have your own favorite creativity guide, please let me know in the comments. As a writer who often faces the page feeling decidedly unmagical, I’m always looking for new inspiration.
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