How did I miss this book for so long?  Have you missed it too?

It offers breath-taking wisdom on the meaning of life, choosing hope in the face of suffering, dignity, and humor.  It also offered great material for a writer considering how to enrich characterization.

Viktor E. Frankl’s tiny book, Man’s Search for Meaning, first appeared in 1946.  Though it tells the tale of his experiences in concentration camps (four!), it uses those experiences to call each of us more fully into ourselves and into the significance of our own lives.   Barely 150 pages, the book illuminates Frankl’s experiences and the theory of human psychology he developed as  a result of them.   These theories offer encouragement to all of us.  For instance, Frankl claims that often it is a ”difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself.”  He urges people to view life’s difficulties as calls to develop inner strength.  “One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph.”

It might sound dull, to say this book is both memoir and treatise on psychology, but I found it anything but.   As a person interested in human spirit and spirituality, I resonated with the idea that all people must strive “to find a concrete meaning in personal existence.”  As a writer, it gave me oodles to think about in terms of character development.  Because I write mysteries that include a lot of social drama (even though might seem humorous to readers, it often isn’t to the characters!), my characters–Lonnie Squires especially–are often asking themselves how they are going to endure the painful circumstances of their lives.  Frankl helped me understand that for most people, it’s discovering a Why that helps them endure the How.  Good food for thought for everyone suffering social oppression.  Heck, good food for thought for everyone.

I like to read more than one book at a time.  Unless it’s fiction.  I can only read one novel at a time, but I can have several nonfiction books, art books, books on creativity going at once.  They all mix in my head in terrific ways.  And for the last several weeks, even as I’ve been looking at my other Spring Breezes books on writing, I’ve had the great pleasure of looking at Lynda Barry’s What It Is (Drawn and Quarterly 2008).

“Looking at” describes the experience more than “reading.”  Perhaps “absorbing” is an even better word for my relationship with this book.  It’s almost indescribable.  Barry does with images–collage, painting, lettering–what we normally see people trying to do with words.  She wonders about things like memory and creativity and what images are and where it all comes from within us.  She gives terrific lessons for how to write in more effective and meaningful ways.  And she gives it to you through your right brain.

I felt the book moved through three basic parts:  her musings on the big ideas behind creativity of all kinds, her writing instruction, and a section reproducing some of her notes from her own writing process. 

Some years ago (how many?  I can’t remember!) I had the great experience of taking a one-day workshop with her and it changed my writing forever.  I use a technique or two I learned from her at some point in nearly every workshop I lead.  If you ever have a chance to take a class with her,  do it!  In the meantime, check out this book.

This week I checked out Bill O’Hanlon’s Write is a Verb:  Sit Down.  Start Writing.  No Excuses.   Cincinnati:  Writer’s Digest Books, 2007.

A lot of “how to make yourself sit down and write” sorts of books exist out there and  more than a few grace my own shelves.  No matter how many of them you’ve read, liked or disliked, O’Hanlon’s book is worth a look for three big reasons.

First, his approach is not to tell you what you should do to make your writing life more energetic and prolific.  Instead he tells you how to figure out for yourself what will work for you, your personality, your lifestyle, your habits and context and fears and so forth.  Makes a lot of sense, given that O’Hanlon’s “real” job is as a therapist.  Though he’s clearly also a writer, with more than twenty published books under his belt.  So, if you’re up for working out your own plan–and doing the little bit of honest assessment of your life and personality required along the way–you’ll get a lot out of it, I think.

Second, the book comes with a DVD which has some nifty and worthwhile stuff on it.  A video of an hour of O’Hanlon’s workshop.  Sure, it mostly repeats what’s in the book, but I’m a firm believer in multiple learning styles in every person, and I know that reading material and watching material puts that stuff in at least two different places in my brain.  More stores to draw information from in the future.  The DVD also includes four of O’Hanlon’s podcasts and I liked them well enough to head to website to see if I can find more.  Finally, the disc includes all of the worksheets from the book so you can actually print them if you want to.  Multiple times.  As one who never fills out in-the-book worksheets, I thought this was terrific.

Third, and perhaps most important (and so congratulations to all of you who read this far!) is the information on approaching editors and agents and how he packages it.  Most of us have heard of the importance of good marketing information in any book proposal we write.  Well, O’Hanlon spells out exactly what this means and how important it is.  He calls it “platform.”  How can YOU help market the book–and how many people can you reach?  Don’t have your own podcast?  Consider putting one up.  Haven’t had media training?  Maybe you should get some.  And if all that sounds too much too tackle, O’Hanlon gives some creative and surprising suggestions for using the contacts you have–that you may not even have thought of as “contacts”–to build the platform agents and publishers so desperately want to see in a potential book.  This alone was worth the price of the book to me.

Check out O’Hanlon’s website too.

Happy Monday.

I’m still working on the design of the blog.  Forgive the WordPress default.  But here’s some fun writing info to make up for it.

In honor of spring, I decided to do throw the windows wide and let in some new, fresh air to circulate with the familiar furniture of my imagination.  So for the next few weeks, I’m going to read a few books on writing that don’t look like the sort of thing I’d normally pick up.  For instance, no books on story structure for the next two months, since I love that stuff and read it all the time.  No, I want to bring in something different.  Then I thought I’d share what I read, and the good things I learned, with you.  Not book reviews, really.  More about sharing the good breezes . . .

So, for starters, last weekend I picked up Kenneth Atchity’s A Writer’s Time. Revised Edition. NY: Norton, 1995. Atchity himself is an interesting resource for writers and other creative people; his blog is worth a look.  Anyhow, this is a book for writer’s on time management.  Not what I’d usually read–time management . . .  which would make sense if you watched me go through a day wasting time!

Anyhow, I gotta admit that Atchity’s approach to writing projects really grabbed my imagination.  As you might imagine, the book spells out a clear working calendar for projects of any length and gives great tips for staying on task in manageable daily chunks.  But what really captured my attention was his emphasis on pre-writing using index cards.  That might sound awful to many of you (it does to me too, since I’m a discover-as-I-go first drafter), but this is just what I was looking for!  New breezes!!

Atchity says that when he teaches, he doesn’t let his students write a word on their papers until they have accumulated enough index cards of ideas (and research if needed) to write the entire work.  He encourages them to gather more than they need to allow for flexibility.  Then when they sit down to write, they never face a blank page.  Your working calendar develops from your deadline and targeted manuscript length.  You write through only the number of cards you need to on any one day to stay on task, thus avoiding burnout.  And best of all–he balances work with “vacation” time so that the writer’s creative well is constantly being refilled.  Check out the book for the interesting details.

This reminded me a lot of the index card for pre-writing method I remember reading in Elizabeth George’s Write Away some years ago.

I decided to give it a try, as I had a short article I needed to write for a workshop project.  So instead of opening my word processor, I gathered the number of index cards I figured I’d need for a 1000 word essay plus a few extra ideas.  And I walked around jotting ideas, one per card, for a few days.  I fussed with those cards off and on all the time, even jotting something at red lights.  Rearranged while eating breakfast.  Looked up a quote or two.

My biggest surprise:  I loved the tactile aspects of manipulating ideas.  That really engaged my brain in a new way. 

Anyhow, I wrote the article on time and I think it was richer than it might have been.  I liked the method though I’m skeptical about how well I’d do with it when writing a novel.  Still, I might give it a whirl sometime.