Writing Begins With The Breath-- Laraine Herring-- Thoughts

Writing Begins With the Breath Embodying Your Authentic Voice by Laraine Herring

This afternoon, I sat drinking tea and eating almonds. I also was doing writing exercises from Writing Begins With The Breath. Each chapter is quite short and concise. In each chapter there are short easy body exercises to increase awareness; open and close your palms like a book, check your pulse, breathe in and out from your nostrils eight times on each side. They are easy things, but focused on paying attention.

At the end of the chapters are writing exercises. Maybe three or four of them. They are designed to get you to pay attention to different aspects of your writing; relationships, acceptance, empathy, body as source, ancestors as source, and many other topics. I have spent about an hour each day doing the exercises from a chapter. They dredge out emotions, feelings, and ideas many of them you didn't know you had. It has been both frustrating and enjoyable doing these exercises.

I write them out long hand on a folded in half piece of paper. This gives me four sections to write on. I don't keep a journal. I like to keep things jumbled together in a small pile. Among the responses, I include some poetry. These are not great poems. They are about my inner life. I have three more of them. Some would call them unplanned sloppy. In a way, they were written as part of a simple exercise.

Shadow

There is a shadow
It follows me everywhere I go
I think it likes me

Manure

Soft and stinky runny cheesy
Brown, gooey, full of red earth worms
It replenishes the world

Garlic

Wonderful reeking smell that
Drives away vampires and businessmen
Keeps away colds and kisses

I have finished some 15 chapters in this book and still have far to go. Sixteen days of reading is far more than I usually do on any book. I find this book fascinating because it combines psychology with creative writing with awareness exercises. I have many more chapters to go. I may renew the book so I can redo some of the exercises.

I have found many of the exercises to be quite helpful in improving the quality of my writing and self expression. I am beginning to think of my voice as my shadow which follows me everywhere and is with me all the time.


The author Laraine Herring has an MFA in Creative Writing and a MA in counseling psychology. I have not read her two novels and her counseling books, so I can't really comment on them. This is her blog: http://laraineherring.blogspot.com/ . The writing is crisp, clear, and readable.


The book is published by Shambhala which produces many quality meditation, new age, buddhist, texts on mysticism, and other esoteric titles.

The Sound On The Page-- Ben Yagoda

The Sound On The Page

I am still reading The Sound On The Page by Ben Yagoda. The text is dense, slow reading with lots of deeply meaningful statements and quotes. There is a six page appendix of original Interviewees in the back of the book which lists people; Cynthia Ozick, Dave Barry, Bebe Moore Campbell, Stanley Crouch, and many amazing authors.

Every time I pick this book up to read, I learn a little more. This is a wonderful quote from Dave Barry: "There is a lot of what I call "God Writing" in the newspaper. We're taught to sound authoritative and impartial and professional, and often to sound boring. I always wanted my column to look more like it was a total mistake that I had gotten hold of the wordprocessor."

I think that this is the problem I am having with my own writing. Maybe, I have been taught that in order to appear serious, I must be intensely and overwhelmingly boring. To put in my voice and spice will disconcert the reader and make them run far far away.

There is a later discussion on whether to use a pen and paper or wordprocessor. I personally feel that I must write down my reviews of books before putting them into a computer. There is something wonderfully tactile about putting words on paper. It makes them concrete and physical. The wordprocessor is ephemeral. It is lightning on a screen focused through our eyeballs.

He compiles dozens of different writers quotes to create a vision of how to create style. Think of a jigsaw puzzle completely made of quotes arranged to say something completely different once the quotes are all put together and you would have this book.

I may not finish reading this book until tomorrow or the next day. It is slow going, but worth it.

I find myself talking to myself out loud more as I write about The Sound On The Page. I think it is helping me develop an original voice.

This book has some very interesting polemics in it. Ben Yagoda comes out against The Elements of Style because the style is too simple. This makes the book quite interesting. This book unlike many writing books does not admonish you to write simply. It gives examples of both simple styles and very ornate writing styles; Harold Bloom, Henry James, and Saul Bellow . I rather like the idea of writing in a complex style.

Some writers will go against this book because it challenges the canon and introduces some very different ideas about writing style and voice.

Here is the book.

Developing A Voice or Personal Style

Developing A Voice or Personal Style

I have been criticized for not having a strong personal style or voice in my writing. I think writing in a way must be like stage acting, where you develop a specific style to hold your audiences attention.

While I have found many books on grammar and structure in writing, I have found very little about how to get and hold peoples attention in writing. In other words, I am looking for books and material on creating a strong individual voice or style while writing.

This seems to be a theme which I get criticized for. I have even started a discussion on Blogcatalog covering this particular issue.
http://www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/developing-a-voice-or-personal-style

I do not think even the best writing manuals like The Elements Style or On Writing Well cover this very well.

The central question is what holds peoples attention and why? This must effect how successful most writers are.

Just be yourself is really not enough to answer this question. I am myself and there is no other like me. What aspect of myself attracts other people to my writing?

This is the first time I have really asked this question. When I went to my libraries catalog, I found books on the subject, but I did not find a single one at our library. I requested a few to look at. It might be something which I should consider ordering for our branch.

Do you know any really good books or websites on this subject?

On Writing Well The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction-- William Zinsser-- Review

On Writing Well The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, Sixth Edition, Revised and Updated, c1998 by William Zinsser is a guide to writing nonfiction. I found this book to be quite interesting. It is one of the first books that I have ever read that specifically focuses just on nonfiction writing. Almost every previous work I read on writing was focused on creative writing or poetry.

Much of the book is how to find your unique voice and not write like other people. He encourages people to develop an individual style different from other writers. The book reminds the reader that writing is more than about making money. It is about personal satisfaction. Zinsser describes how his mother would clip articles from newspapers for him to read that were examples of good writing.

For Zinsser that are two main focuses for the nonfiction writer. These are person and place. Every activity involves people and the best way to write about activities is to find out about the people who do them according to Zinsser. The other corresponding things which goes with people is place. All activities occur in a particular space. Zinsser describes his trip to see a camel caravan in Timbuktu as one example of an interesting place to visit.

The many different types of writing he covers: sports, memoir, travel, science and technology, humor, business, and the arts and criticism seem incidental to his focus on creating consistent craftshmanship. Zinsser comes back to a set of principles; write clearly and concisely, avoid jargon, use words people understand, and write about what you are interested in.

Writing is a process for him, never completely done, and always with room for improvement. He admonishes the novice writer to stick to their principles and insist that editors not change things without looking at the work first.

Nonfiction is as much literature in this book as fiction is. There is more nonfiction written than fiction being written every day. Journalism is just as valuable in Zinsser's creed as novels.

There was quite a bit of biographical information sketched into the book on writing. We learn that the author enjoys traveling, is a native of New York, is a city person, and loved writing for newspapers.

The one section I have some trepidation about was on how to interview people. I have been quite nervous about the idea of interviewing people for this blog. I have trouble rewriting what people have said. I often find myself being quite meticulous about quoting what people have said. I like to go back to ask people for clarification most of the time when I quote people.

If you are looking for a clear guide on how to develop a unique style, voice, and write clearly for nonfiction, this book is worth reading. The book, however does not cover a huge amount of material on grammar or usage. I think the book would make an excellent companion read to The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. E.B. White is quoted several times in On Writing Well.

This book could be used to improve a lot of the blogs which I have been reading on the internet. Too many are focused on selling a product or service and do not have a personal voice, or a unique style.