Book Review: Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life by Natalie Goldberg

Natalie Goldberg, author of the bestselling "Writing Down The Bones," teaches a method of writing that can take you beyond craft to the true source of creative power: The mind that is "raw, full of energy, alive and hungry."Here is compassionate, practical, and often humorous advice about how to find time to write, how to discover your personal style, how to make sentences come alive, and how to overcome procrastination and writer's block -- including more than thirty provocative "Try this" exercises to get your pen moving.

And here also is a larger vision of the writer's task: balancing daily responsibilities with a commitment to writing; knowing when to take risks as a writer and a human being; coming to terms with success and failure and loss; and learning self-acceptance -- both in life and art.

"Wild Mind" will change your way of writing. It may also change your life.

I have recently started to take my own writing seriously so I am interested in “writing” books. I thought that this was going to be filled with brilliant anecdotes on writing and the writing life, but I was wrong. This book is mostly about the author own writing and spiritual journey. She does talk about free form writing. I thought that the idea sounded familiar and then I remembered it is basically the same thing as Morning Pages” in the Artist Way. Maybe this technique is so useful that all writers employ it. I really have no idea. Aside from the memoir bits I did not find much new information about writing in this book. To be perfectly honest, I did enjoy the memoir pieces. There was nothing wrong with that. I was just expecting more. I have read that many writers recommend this book. I was stuck on exactly WHY, but then again that is just me. This was my first book that I read by this author so maybe I will like her other books better.