The Write Balance: How to Embrace Percolation, Revision & Going Public by Bonnie Goldberg ~ Book Extract.

I am absolutely delighted to be a part of the publication day book blitz for; The Write Balance: How to Embrace Percolation, Revision & Going Public by Bonnie Goldberg and to be sharing an exclusive extract with you all. This book sound just the ticket for anyone who loves to write, whether an established author or those just testing the waters I think this book is going to be the perfect companion.

About the Book

Bonni Goldberg’s The Write Balance introduces you to alternative perspectives and motivation for lasting creative fulfillment. This companion book to the beloved bestseller, Room toWrite is filled with encouragement, tools, examples and exercises.

Through years of teaching writing in workshops and in classrooms, Bonni has seen that the writers who are most passionate and grounded in their Writing Self embrace three aspects of the writing process: nurturing ideas, revising to best communicate those ideas, and completing the writing cycle by going public.

In this powerful guide, Bonni invites you to explore these creative stages which are essential to satisfying your Writing Self.

Use The Write Balance to:

Find Fulfillment as a Writer

Explore Creative Writing

Add to Your Writer’s Toolbox for Perspective

Overcome Writer’s Block

Teach Creative Writing

Inspire Your Writing Group

Give as Gifts to the Writers in Your Life

Purchase Link – https://books2read.com/u/3n2XQ9

Book Extract

Frankie and I share a love of tea (though we haven’t had the opportunity yet to reveal to one another our favorite types) and of historical fiction. I thought it might be fun to share a section of The Write Balance that celebrates reading “with a soothing beverage.” This section of the book explores the writer’s process of percolating. Percolation is all the time a writer spends before and between writing. It’s essential to percolate, but it makes some writers uncomfortable because it can feel like not doing anything productive. But reading feels productive and it can be a way to percolate…

~~~~~

Before I share this extract, in answer to Bonnie’s unasked question, I am a bit common 😄 so a large mug of strong ‘builders tea’ made with Yorkshire Tea is my preferred beverage. Frankie x

~~~~

Reading is crucial writer’s fuel. It is a time-honored means of immersing yourself in the receptive state that percolating is all about. Reading nourishes your writing because it exercises your imagination and receptivity, fills your psyche with rhythms and patterns of language different from your own, and takes you out of your daily life and routine perspectives. Reading is part of the percolation process because you feed your Writing Self in all these ways without creating writing.

Reading exercises many of the same imaginative muscles as writing. Using these muscles in a slightly different way tones them for when we write. It’s a bit like exercising the opposing triceps muscle in your arm after working your biceps. Reading contributes to the balance of the Writing Self just as a well-planned workout keeps the whole arm fit. So many people spend more time watching movies than reading. But screenplay writers notwithstanding, for writers the more active experience of reading is of greater benefit to the Writing Self than the relatively passive act of watching films or television.

Reading is the conduit to your Writing Self’s lineage and ancestry. Being receptive to your writing ancestors and siblings connects what you are writing vertically through time and horizontally across the present. Learning from the writings of others is a legitimate and necessary form of mentorship. There’s no way to underestimate how this connection subtly adds depth and dimension to your own words.

Even so, it’s not unusual to come across a book and think, Oh no, that was my idea, now I can’t write my book. Or, No one will want to read my book now because the concept has already been done. Some writers feel that reading compromises their originality or influences them in other negative ways. I find this perspective self-limiting. I look at authors who write on a topic similar to mine as a brother or a grandmother to my own book idea. Just as you share a gene pool with your relatives that can cause you to have several strikingly similar traits, it’s very likely that you share some writing ideas with your writing relatives and ancestors. Similarities between you and your blood relatives are not a reason to abandon your goals. Discovering overlaps between your work and another writer’s isn’t either. Instead, it encourages you to sort out the facets of the subject you can add to.

Often what ignites our urge to write in the first place is what we read. Many people begin to write because they’ve been inspired by someone else’s writing. We want to join the conversation from the other side of the page. Reading is one way to begin meaningful dialogue with yourself or others. It is a first receptive step toward taking action in the world as a writer or a citizen. You read something and it makes you want to respond in word or deed.

But just as some people read rather than take action in the world, sometimes writers read rather than write. Lulled by receiving the constant stimulation of ideas and images that reading supplies, we get distracted from creating our own. If this sounds like you, limit your reading when you’re writing a draft and indulge in it freely when you’re percolating. I know a novelist, for example, who reads poetry only while writing the first draft of a novel but who reads voraciously and indiscriminately when the draft is complete. Another novelist I know read every nineteenth-century novel she could get her hands on that took place in the Windy City when writing the first draft of a historical set in Chicago. She used reading to immerse her Writing Self in the universe of her novel. Once she finished writing her draft, she broadened her reading horizons so that it was once again a receptive and percolative experience.

Thomas Moore describes a book as a metaphorical temple, “a place of relief from daily existence.” Reading immerses us in a timelessness that, like a temple, rejuvenates our psyche by fully engaging it in a world completely outside the details of our lives. When you read, you’re a human being because you receive the written world. When you write you’re a human doing because you contribute to the written world. For those who don’t write, reading is enough of a fulfilling relationship to the written world. As a writer, reading is fuel that your Writing Self uses to percolate.

About the Author

Bonni Goldberg is the author of The Write Balance: How to Embrace Percolation, Revision & Going Public, the companion book to the best-seller Room to Write: Daily Invitations to a Writer’s Life. Bonni is an award-winning poet and writer. She is the creator of the 2 Minute Journals™ series. Both traditionally and indie published, her books include non-fiction for adults and fiction and non-fiction for young readers. Her essays and blog posts can be found in numerous print and online publications.

Bonni teaches creative writing at colleges and leads writing workshops internationally for all ages. She knows everyone is creative, and she supports people to discover and share their authentic, meaningful and imaginative experiences through words. Whether through her writings or through teaching, her methods and perspectives continue to empower thousands of adults, families, and children.

Bonni is also a Jewish educator. She speaks, writes, and leads workshops on Jewish topics such as Jewish identity, rituals and antisemitism at Jewish women’s events, JCCs, and conferences. 

Bonni Goldberg lives in Portland, Oregon with her partner in life, and some creative projects, artist Geo Kendall.

Social Media Links –

www.bonnigoldberg.com
www.facebook.com/bonnigoldbergbooks
www.twitter.com/bonnigoldberg
www.instagram.com/goldbergbonni

Giveaway

Giveaway to win one of these prizes –

30-minute coaching call (video or phone if US)

Q&A Zoom with their group (video)

Feedback on 3 double spaced pages of their work (via email)

Giveaway here➡️ http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/7598c2160/?

Advertisement