"Writer with a Day Job: Inspiration & Exercises to Help You Craft a Writing Life Alongside Your Career" [by Aine Greaney

Realized as I wrote my post about Natalie Goldberg's book that I'd never actually posted anything about this one. "Writer with a Day Job" was a much slower read. I found myself putting it down to absorb the information and meditate on it. I did some of the exercises, I looked things up for further reading, and I took my time. There is a lot in this book and unlike Natalie's materials, I haven't really read Aine Greaney's stuff before so I was unfamiliar with her material. I am keeping both books handy for future reference as I go forward writing longer pieces. Since I am still new to novel writing Aine's book gave me a lot of good information and ideas. There were online resources to investigate which I liked. She talks about how long a novel should be (NaNoWriMo is only 50,000 words. An actual novel should be much longer).  Great examples of how writers with day jobs find time for writing, how they work it into their schedules, and what they are able to write about etc. Lots of good stuff in here.  I highly recommend it.

reading "Old Friend from Far Away" by Natalie Goldberg

Started reading “Old Friend From Far Away: The Practice of writing memoir” by Natalie Goldberg last night. I should have remembered that it would be a quick read with lots and lots of writing exercises. Practically every page is an exercise. Of course I wasn’t doing the exercises as I went. I was sitting just outside the door of my daughter’s art class. It was her first class and she was nervous- new place, new teacher, new classmate.. yup, just one classmate so far. Anyway I was able to read 70-80 pages during the hour or so that I was there. It is a very different read than the other book I just read (about how to write a novel). Since I have read other books by Natalie Goldberg, and also taken a couple of classes where her materials were used by the teacher I feel like I know a lot of what is in the book already. It’s a little disappointing. It’s good stuff, and it’s good to have it in one place, but I’m not getting anything earth-shattering out of it so far. Nothing is jumping out at me that makes me scream “OH! That’s it!!” It’s kind of like “yeah, I know that already...” but maybe when I read the book again more slowly and take the time to do the exercises some good will come from it. I did actually buy this book so I can go back and re-read it whenever I am ready.