Writing Down the Bones (1986)

The subtitle of this slim little lively one-of-a-kind tome by Natalie Goldberg is Freeing the Writer Within, which suggests it is pop psychology self-help at least as much as writing manual. Or it suggested that to me anyway. As such, though I have long been attracted to writing manuals as a kind of guilty pleasure (Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, William Zinsser’s On Writing Well, Stephen King’s On Writing, Strunk & White’s Elements of Style, etc., etc.), I tended to ignore Writing Down the Bones. The Zen Buddhism aspect of it did not help. But finally, 15 years after its publication, at a time when I was stuck in the doldrums of full-time work, I happened to pick it up out of curiosity and nothing else to read in a host’s home when I was traveling. And I was instantly smitten, consuming it in a day or two. Goldberg plugs into the simple joys of creative pursuit without any pretensions and has practical help on nearly every page for breaking down resistance to doing it, which basically plagues everyone who wants to write, as far as I can tell. It’s fashionable for writers to moan and groan about their work and lot in life and how hard it all is, but Goldberg is true to the original creative impulse and counsels us to stay close too. Writing Down the Bones was a big hit and a bestseller but don’t hold that against it. Her approach, at least externally, is not much different from others, basically calling for writing every day and offering a wide range of exercises, including readings. The liberation stems from her attacks on the strictures themselves. For me as for many, writing every day implied dedication to a single project, presumably a novel or memoir or larger work of some kind with respectability and money attached. But Goldberg sees that as turned around and I needed to hear it. The daily writing should be an indulgence or celebration purely of the craft. You can do it in 15 minutes. It can be focused on a project, but the project should emerge from the daily practice. There’s an unkind argument that Goldberg herself only produced this one excellent book in all her efforts—she has more than a dozen to her credit, fiction, memoir, and further writing manuals, and I’ve been through a few. But I think that’s sort of seeing it the wrong way. She wrote an excellent, memorable book that can be returned to over and over. How many produce even one book like that? You should see the condition of my copy. There’s another unkind argument that Goldberg’s book never did me much good, considering the perhaps forlorn state of my own “professional” career as a blogger and all that. On the other hand, she opened me up to the simple pleasures of writing, to organizing, exploring, and expressing thoughts and feelings as a daily practice, which ultimately turned me into someone who does write most days. Blogging may not be considered one of the higher pursuits, but I can say it gives me everything Goldberg ever promised. My suggestion for Writing Down the Bones is first to read it like a novel. Then go back and read it slowly and do every single dang suggestion for writing exercises, no matter how silly it might seem. I think there’s a good chance you will find it liberating too.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.