Are you still writing?

Reading time: About 2 minutes

This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world to find websites, books and articles to help writers. Today I discuss the book Still Writing by Dani Shapiro…..

I have already read most of the big-time books about writing: Stephen King’s On Writing. Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art. William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools.

They’re all good. The only trouble is you could spend your entire life reading books about writing. And when would you have time to write?

I was recently enticed (I wanted to say “sucked in”) to read another one called Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life by Dani Shapiro. Although it’s short (230 very small pages) and written in a breezy style, I still resent the three hours this book took from my life.

Weirdly, I agree with just about everything Shapiro has to say about writing: Don’t edit while you write. Tick. Don’t let your internal editor judge your writing. Tick. Write every day. Double tick. But I dislike her actual writing! Here’s a paragraph to give you the flavour:

Excuse me while I throw up a little. I don’t want to write about this. I really don’t, because like most writers I don’t like thinking about business, or talking about business, or being aware of business at all.

Like a toxic two-year-old, she’s simultaneously cute and whiney.  According to the dust jacket, Shapiro’s writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, Elle, Vogue and the New York Times. I think she cares more about the business of writing than she’s prepared to admit.

That said, I did have one positive experience after reading her book. I asked a writer friend of mine about it and she thought I meant the male non-fiction writer Dan Shapiro. I hadn’t heard of him, either but I immediately took his book Delivering Doctor Amelia out of the library and I loved it.

If you want to learn more about writing, read Dan (without the i) Shapiro’s excellent non-fiction book.

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