Introduction to Write-Brain
Workbook written by Rachel
Simon, author of Riding The Bus With My Sister (made into a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie with Rosie O'Donnell, Andie MacDowell, and directed by Anjelica Huston) and Writer's Survival Guide. www.rachelsimon.com
Few silences prompt
as much grief as the silence of
a writer not writing. Whether
caused by the beginner's fear
of starting, the student's insecurity
about continuing, or the author's
despair over topping recent success,
writers sometimes can't write.
It is for these
people, the not-writing writers,
that Bonnie Neubauer wrote Write-Brain Workbook, a treasure
chest of playful, get-going ideas,
the kind every not-writer inevitably
yearns to see.
I myself searched
in vain for such a book seven
years after my bleakest not-writing
phase began when I was eighteen.
Before that age, I'd written
cartons of novels, stories, plays,
and poetry. But then, perched
on the end of my write-whatever-I-want
childhood and the beginning of
my aim-for-high-standards college
years, my creativity froze.
I had ideas occasionally, but
I was so daunted by the enormous
chasm between the way I'd always
written and the way I hoped to
write, that I couldn't bear the
thought of putting pen to paper.
Conveniently, the demands of my
undergraduate education were formidable;
I'll get back to writing, I told
myself, after I finish this paper,
this semester, this degree.
By the time I'd lost the excuse
of time, I was in my early twenties,
working at such meaningless jobs
that I acquired the new excuse
of existential gloom.
Not until my mid-twenties
did I get a decent job, and hence
get serious about resuming.
To do this, I determined, I would
go to the library every day when
I finished work at 5:00, and write
in a carrel until I left for home
at 9:00. Since I had not-written
for so many years, I decided to
begin every session by doing writing
exercises. If one bloomed
into something more substantial,
so much the better, but if not,
writing exercises would carry
me through my allotted time every
evening.
With this daily
schedule in mind, I hurried to
the bookstore, searched for a
collection of exercises and discovered,
to my dismay and disbelief, that
there were none to be had.
In desperation, I bought some
grammar books, and for the entire
summer of my twenty-fifth year,
I worked four hours a day on what
amounted to eat-your-spinach exercises.
Eventually, in the fall,
I graduated to writing stories,
and finally, after seven years,
my writer's block came to an end.
Twenty years later,
I met the exuberant writer Bonnie
Neubauer, and learned about the
existence, then only in manuscript
form, of Write-Brain Workbook I knew before
I had even seen a page that this
was the book I'd searched for
in my not-writing days, and, moreover,
the book that would have spurred
rather than quenched the enthusiasm
of the many not-writers who'd
sought my advice ever since.
This was a book that promised
not only a fresh exercise every
day, but an exercise written in
a spirit of fun. Bonnie
sent me a copy, and I quickly
incorporated it into my daily
routine. Here I'd been recommending
writer medicine for so many years.
Finally I could recommend
candy.
So now, every
morning, I enjoy another page
of Write-Brain Workbook. What a treat it's been
for me, and I hope will be for
you. May a page a day drop
the not from your identity, and
make you the real writing writer
you've always dreamed you could
be.
-Rachel Simon |
