Before We Get Started: A Practical Memoir of the Writer's Life Book

This marvelous guide begins where other books on writing and the writing life leave off. Delving deep into the creative process, Bret Lott reveals truths we scarcely realized we needed to know but without which we as writers will soon lose our way. In ten intimate essays based on his own experiences and on the seasoned wisdom of writers including Eudora Welty, E. B. White, Henry David Thoreau, Henry James, and John Gardner, Lott explores such topics asâ?¢ why write? why keep writing?â?¢ the importance of simple wordsâ?¢ the finer points of character detailâ?¢ narrative and the passage of timeâ?¢ the pitfalls of techniqueâ?¢ making a planâ??and letting it goâ?¢ risking failureâ??and reaping the benefitsâ?¢ Accepting rejectionWriters travel alone, but Bret Lottâ??s book makes the journey less lonely and infinitely more rewarding. Before We Get Started will help you make your work as good as it can be: â??Pay attention recklessly. Strain to see through the window of your own artistic consciousness in the exhilarating knowledge that there is no path to the waterfall, and there are a million paths to the waterfall, and there is, too, only one path: yours.â?Read More