Grade: D-
I finally finished Susan K. Perry's book Writing In Flow today. Let me reword that. I finally forced myself to finish it today after months of trying to complete it, as it is one of the most boring books I have ever read. Perry's point in the book is to define "flow," or as it is better known, "being in the zone," that state where you are totally focused on what you are doing and able to ignore all distractions. She accomplishes this with anecdotes she gathered by interviewing various authors, none of which have anything very interesting to offer with the exception of sci-fi writer David Gerrold, who compares his writing process to mating monkeys. Perry certainly doesn't have a problem with flow. She spends the first half of the book regurgitating redundant definitions of flow repeatedly in fits of writing diarrhea. By Chapter 8's beginning on Page 141 (of 229 pages of the book's body) we finally get to "Everything You Wanted To Know About Writing In Flow." It simply isn't very interesting. I would've rather read Q&A interviews with each author about their writing process than the chopped up anecdotes offered here. If you care about how one writer's intake of proteins and carbohydrates affects their creative process, or how another prefers to chomp bagels to enhance their output, then read this. I'm a writer, and I don't think I gleaned one useful thing from it. Oh, wait, there was Gerrold's unorthodox definiton of his writing process. That, I liked.
Grade: D-
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Walburgh's BlogMostly retro, mainly music, but generally whatever's on my mind. Archives
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