Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life

By: Natalie Goldberg

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Synopsis: Natalie Goldberg, who has published a novel, a book of poetry and books on how to be a writer, has written 62 3 to four page chapters, each focuses on elements of writing or the experiences shared by many writers in this book which is part memoir and part instruction manual. She is a practitioner of Zen Buddhism which influences her manner of appreciating everything in her life from her friends, family and acquaintances, to the taste of hot chocolate, the vastness of the sky and the energy you gain as you keep your pencil moving and write with truth and details. She provides many gentle suggestions for exercises meant to expand a writer's understanding of the vast possibilities writing can elucidate. Her tone is generous, humorous, nonthreatening, nonjudgmental, encouraging and down to earth. She shares a writer's moments of exquisite pleasure as new heights of self expression are reached and as the moments of self doubt, fear and frustration are borne. Most of all she welcomes anyone with the will to take time, on a regular basis, to write to proudly call themselves writers believing that as each person adopts the title of writer and writes with persistence and concentration through the rapture and pain of truth as they perceive it, they become practicing writers of worth.