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7 Books on Writing You Haven’t Read
“You can be cautious or you can be creative, but there’s no such thing as a cautious creative..” -George Lois
I assume you’ve read Bird-by-Bird, The Elements of Style, and Stephen King’s On Writing, (all of which are incredible) so they aren’t on this list.
Here are seven unsung gems that have made me a better writer.
Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!) by George Lois
Lois was one of the founders of advertising’s creative revolution in the 1960s and has been called “the real Don Draper” a comparison he hates.
Some of his advice is ad-industry and copywriting specific, but much of it applies to artists in any medium:
“If you want to do something sharp and innovative, you have to know what went on before. Museums are custodians of epiphanies, and these epiphanies enter the central nervous system and deep recesses of the mind.”
He then gives the example of one of his own epiphanies that led to an Esquire cover featuring Mohamed Ali posing as St. Sebastian.
Cassavettes on Cassavettes by John Cassavettes and Ray Carney
Director John Cassavettes looks back on his career and creates a rambling, brilliant, and occasionally self-contradictory creative ethos. Cassavettes is the patron saint of anyone who dreams of creative freedom, following your vision unmolested by “suits” and critics.
One passage that stuck with me:
“I’ve never seen an exploding helicopter. I’ve never seen anybody go and blow somebody’s head off. So why should I make films about them? But I have seen people destroy themselves in the smallest way, I’ve seen people withdraw, I’ve seen people hide behind political ideas, behind dope, behind the sexual revolution, behind fascism, behind hypocrisy, and I’ve myself done all these things. So I can understand them. What we are saying is so gentle. It’s gentleness. We have problems, terrible problems, but our problems are human problems.”
The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing By Norman Mailer
It’s full of Mailer’s trademark braggadocio and posturing, but if you can stomach that, he has some excellent advice, particularly for young writers.
