Writer's ReadThe Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation to the Writing LifeThe Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation to the Writing LifeBy Julia Cameron Paperback, ISBN 158 542 0093 Published by J.P. Tarcher As you may have noticed by my previous columns, I don't "do well" with conventional books on writing. Some bore me to tears with their talk of adverbs and subject-verb agreement. I prefer to share with you the books that light a fire in my writerly heart. I am very pleased to say that I have found a book on writing that has lit that fire once again: Julia Cameron's The Right to Write. In each chapter, Ms. Cameron gives the reader both an essay that embodies what she is teaching the reader and an exercise to help the reader achieve that goal. But Ms. Cameron does more than give writers something to do in the form of her initiations. She gives us something to think about. When we say we have no time to write, do we mean it literally? Or do we mean that we don't have time to plan out our writing? I haven't been writing much since I've been planning my wedding, but I do find time to write in my journal, to write this column, to write letters. The time may be stolen at work, during lunchtime, or late at night. But I find the time to let my writer loose for these non-fiction items. I have to admit that the preceding fact bothers me a bit. I've always thought of myself as a fiction writer, yet the things that I have been finding to write lately aren't fiction. Is it because I'm not into it? Or is it because I've forgotten the joy of a truly rough draft? I'm used to editing as I write, and it can be exhausting at times. I try not to let my descriptions run away from me, try not to go off on tangents. But in controlling myself so tightly when first sitting down to write, am I stifling the writer within? Or is it that I miss the conversational tone of my journal, letters and this column? My fiction has usually been third person omniscient. Perhaps I should be writing something just for fun. Write something just because. Write something in first person, as if the narrator is having a long conversation. The Right to Write gives us permission to write for fun again. To throw the rulebook out on the first rough draft. The plot might not work out. The sentences may run on for paragraphs in that first draft. That is, after all, what revisions are for.
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