{"id":21282,"date":"2013-11-19T08:00:12","date_gmt":"2013-11-19T14:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=21282"},"modified":"2013-11-13T16:38:29","modified_gmt":"2013-11-13T22:38:29","slug":"national-novel-writing-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/national-novel-writing-month\/","title":{"rendered":"National Novel Writing Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read Letters to a Young Poet<\/a><\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>by Rainer Maria Rilke\u00a0(inspired by Whoopi Goldberg’s character in Sister Act II: Back in the Habit<\/a>\u00a0)\u00a0when I was sixteen and wanted to be a writer. Then I read it again a few years later when I still wanted to be a writer, but was faced with the reality of paying bills and making career decisions. \u00a0It always amazes me how much a book can transform you, but also how much your perception of a book can evolve as you change. I’ve never stopped wanting to write, but I have become much more aware of the things that I’ll probably never say.<\/p>\n

“Things aren\u2019t all so tangible and sayable as people\u00a0would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a\u00a0space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are\u00a0works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own\u00a0small, transitory life.” – Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke<\/em><\/p>\n

So, since it is National Novel Writing Month, I thought I’d make some reading suggestions for my fellow writers-in-waiting out there. \u00a0There are plenty of style books and how-tos saturating the market, but some of the best manuals for writing come from writers themselves. \u00a0They’re filled with humor and pragmatism, and may help you learn to find your voice, rather than your marketing plan.<\/p>\n

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On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Stephen King
\nElements of Style<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by William Strunk and E.B. White
\nWhy I Write: Thoughts on the Craft of Fiction\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/a>edited by Will Blythe
\nSteering the Craft<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Ursula K. Le Guin
\nWhy I Write<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by George Orwell
\nLetters to a Young Poet<\/a><\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>by Rainer Maria Rilke<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read Letters to a Young Poet\u00a0by Rainer Maria Rilke\u00a0(inspired by Whoopi Goldberg’s character in Sister Act II: Back in the Habit\u00a0)\u00a0when I was sixteen and wanted to be a writer. Then I read it again a few years later when I still wanted to be a writer, but was[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,1],"tags":[2479,815,515,514],"class_list":["post-21282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-reference","tag-national-novel-writing-month","tag-novels","tag-writers","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-5xg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21282"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21303,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21282\/revisions\/21303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}