What it is and how to write it

I've been geeking out lately and reading several books on the craft and practice of writing. (And buying an embarrassing number of books in general...I wants them).

Last night I worked my way through Lynda Barry's What It Is. It's a beautiful graphic-novel type book chock full o' colorful illustrations and collages (I particularly love her magic cephalopod). It is part autobiographical recounting of her journey into art, part sharing of her process, and part guide to nurturing your own creativity (complete with activity book!). And it's definitely worth a look. She poses some interesting questions. Here are few of them:

Is a dream autobiography or fiction?

After we read a book is it inside of us?

Do memories have mass?

Those are the kinds of questions worth pondering.

Another book I'm currently in the middle of is Writing Alone and With Others by Pat Schneider. I'm not sure what I expected when I picked it up, but it's one of the best purchases I've made lately. It's a hefty tome, some 380 pages including the suggested reading list. I'm early on in it still, but it's one of the most comprehensive books on writing I've ever seen, and I appreciate how Schneider is able to make well-informed suggestions on how to tackle writing while simultaneously recognizing that not one thing works for everyone. She repeatedly encourages her reader to adapt exercises and suggestions to their own style. Here are a few little bits from this book:

"Everyone is a writer. You are a writer. All over the world, in every culture, human beings have carved into stone, written on parchment, birch bark, or scraps of paper, and sealed into letters--their words. Those who do not write stories and poems on solid surfaces tell them, sing them, and, in so doing, write them on the air. Creating words is our continuing passion. We dream stories; we make up stories, poems, songs, and tell them to ourselves. All alone, we write."

"Craft is essential; I will work all my life at craft. But craft is not the same thing as art. Craft is the knowledge of how to mix blue with yellow on my palette, but art is the courage to dip the brush into the paint and lay it on the canvas in my own way."

And with that, I'm off to bed to sleep away this headache and dream of becoming a selkie. Yes. I watched The Secret of Roan Inish tonight for the first time since I was a little girl. It was delightful.