June Book Review #6

Book: Write: 10 Days to Overcome Writer's Block. Period. by Karen E. Peterson, Ph.D.
Age-range: 16 and up
Recommended: No

I've had writer's block for a few months now and I've been reading a lot of writing books to try to get rid of it.  This one seemed like a no-brainer when I saw it in the bookstore.  It was a very well-written, well-organized book, but it was much too clinical and filled with too much textbook speak for my taste.

The author is a clinical psychologist, so she brings a lot of her experiences doing that into her writing.  The crux of this book is her view that the right brain and the left brain don't communicate very well.  So to get any writing done you have to trick both sides of your brain into letting you do it.  There were quite a few "quizzes" where you were supposed to write with your dominant hand and then your non-dominant hand and the different results would astound you.

Both sides of my brain seem to get along just fine, which made this book sort of obsolete.  I did glean a few good tidbits, however, and I'm sure they will help me along the way.