Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing by Roger Rosenblatt

I went to my local library two Wednesdays ago to get a replacement library card. And picked up six books while I was there (five nonfiction  about the craft of writing and one J. D. Robb novel).

So of course many deadlines from within and without have surfaced to keep me from reading them before the two-week return date.

Still, I have managed a workable pace.

The first (and shortest at 155 pages) of them was the book mentioned in this post title. Rosenblatt has a wonderful sense of humor. He teaches how learning to write essays, short stories and poems helps us to write novels as well as enhancing each of the aforementioned written forms.

Out of my four double-sided college-ruled pages of notes, here are some highlights:

• Eventually, they will discover that their writing validates their lives (p. 42).
• Subject matter determines voice (p. 58).
• We write to change the world (p. 58).
• Your ending lies within your beginning (p. 61).
• You're Virgil, not Dante. It's their adventure (p. 115).
• [Authors are] observers of the world (p. 129).
• ...an evolutionary tending on the part of the species to be useful (per Lewis Thomas) (pp. 148, 149).

I recommend this book for authors new or established.

Read something fun or enlightening or both today!

Denise Barker, author + blogger + copy editor

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