I need to get an Xmas gift for a relative who has decided to start taking creative writing classes. I was thinking that there must be a book or books that are recognized as good beginner guides to creative writing.
Found a list on Amazon, but I have no idea what might be a good one.
Is there anyone out there who is a writer and who might have any recommendations?
Might be a really old school idea in this day and age, but a lovely hard-bound notebook can be a classy way to go - something for jotting down one's ideas. Stuff it into one's bag and off you go - you can get some really handsome blank books at various art supplies stores.
A bit more pedestrian but undeniably useful would be stuff like a reputable dictionary or thesaurus.
Might be a really old school idea in this day and age, but a lovely hard-bound notebook can be a classy way to go - something for jotting down one's ideas. Stuff it into one's bag and off you go - you can get some really handsome blank books at various art supplies stores.
A bit more pedestrian but undeniably useful would be stuff like a reputable dictionary or thesaurus.
Thanks Max. That may be a good idea as an add-on gift, but I sense she won't be doing much longhand writing, since she just got a new laptop from her husband for her birthday. Dictionaries and thesauruses are out, she's an ESL teacher with a strong personal and professional interest in grammar and language, so she has a couple of bookshelves full of those.
Actually, I was being at least partly serious. In 20-odd years of writing most of my best first drafts were created on one of those 1/2 size pads of yellow legal paper with a, wait for it, a pencil!!! An art quality 2B pencil, to be precise...
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Actually, I learned many long years ago never to depend on a pen of any kind, particularly in winter. I carry a small notebook in my shirt pocket along with a pen, but there is a yellow HB pencil in all my vehicles and a golf score pencil stub in my wallet and has been for years. A full coil notebook is also in every vehicle.
Oh yeah, I also carry an iPhone in that shirt pocket, but guess which piece of equipment I reach for on instinct and for total and fastest ease of use?
I'm surprised these didn't come up in the first 5 pages of the Amazon listing:
Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott (readable and funny)
On Becoming A Novelist by Raymond Carver and John Gardner
The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner
(I am a fan of John Gardner - check and see if any of their favourite authors have penned something like the above - many have: Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, John Irving etc.)
What kind of writing does your relative hope to do? You might find a specialized "How to" volume for them (Children's lit, romance, history, TV, etc. etc.) A copy of "The Writer's Market" is usually a good tool - but again - that would depend on what they are hoping to write. A subscription to something like "Writer's Digest" or the Canadian equivalent can be good as well - a monthly or bi-monthly reminder that maybe they should be polishing that manuscript.
If they're just going "general" they might find some interesting challenges in this volume:
Winning a contest can be a good way to break into the field, and trying to win some of these (writing the entry) is a good way to set oneself a challenge in a genre or type of writing that one might not otherwise attempt. Many of the contest fees also provide a subscription to the sponsoring magazine - another good way to find out about the state of the "art" and the market.
I would second Max's suggestion of a nice notebook - Moleskine's are available at most Chapters and over the net - find out what size might work for them - some people don't carry large bags around... and some do.
(If the person is a Mac user you might consider getting them software - a tool like Circus Ponies Notebook or Scrivener can be a good way to keep all the notes/images/sound bites that float around a writer's desk/memory/imagination nicely digital and more easily transform them into a story or article)
For a "lighter" add-on present you could get them a copy of a movie like "Throw Momma From the Train" or some other "Writing" themed movie - "a writer writes!"
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