Writing Past Dark

Envy, Fear, Distraction and Other Dilemmas in the Writer's Life by Bonnie Friedman

Copley News Service



	

		

		Although the book is meant for professional writers, in particular novelists,

Friedman has much to offer the beginning writer.. .Friedman, whose elegant

prose style makes Writing Past Dark a delicious experience for lovers of

language, counsels that the only way to detour the demons that man the

roadblocks to writing is to keep writing. 'I tell my students to go with

what is scary,' she says. 'That's where the energy lies.'. . .The problem

of getting a piece ready for other people to read is that what was once

personal is now on display. Friedman deals with that issue in her essays,

particularly when you write about those close to you.






Columbus Dispatch



	

		

In her new book of heartfelt essays, [Friedman] takes on the fearsome bugaboos

of envy, jealousy, guilt and other distractions that have sometimes blocked

or hobbled her own writing, and she has fashioned medicinal anedcotes about

them that should help other writers work through their troubles.

The book, Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction and Other Dilemmas in the

Writer's Life, uses a personal narrative, other writers' experiences and

sound advice to identify and bridge the potholes that every writer confronts.
It is primarily about a writer's emotional life and not merely the cold stylings

of technique. The caliber of Friedman's craft itself is instructive and

invigorating - better than even Annie Dillard's in The Writing Life, which,

by comparison, seems uninvolving and aloof. With Friedman, the shirt sleeves

are rolled up, the sweat is on the brow, and hard-earned solutions are at hand.