“Consider this: at one time, all the stories we know so well, every line we may have memorized from a poem or a play, all the literature that has shaped our collective imagination, did not exist,” writes award-winning author and teacher Susan Griffin in this step-by-step guide to the creative process. With encouraging words to support writers across genres, this meditative and practical guide is organized into three parts with short chapters “arranged according to an imagined but not always followed (or even appropriate) chronology of the process of writing, from beginning to end.” The first section of the book focuses on the elusive process through which ideas and images form before the writing begins, the second section dives into lessons on how to write gleaned from Griffin’s decades of teaching, and the final section helps writers find organic endings to their work. Threaded throughout the book is an essay titled “How I Learned to Write,” in which Griffin allows readers into her personal journey as a writer. Ideal for writers just beginning or for anyone stuck in their writing, Griffin reminds readers that “human beings are all creative” and “what is important is that you are present to the process.”
