I love this title for being blunt and relatable. Must admit I start a good number of my poems while “in the cups”! This book can serve as a great reminder for writers that may not have taken a writing course in many years or learning piece for writers that did not take courses through high school/college.
These writing tips can always sound repetitive or I think “I know that… it’s not a new secret!” but as writers we must admit… we do forget the simple lessons!
It touches on the aspects of style, inspiration, editing, etc and was a nostalgic journey taking me back to creative writing courses a few years ago. The book is well-written and easy to fly through while taking notes- per the title this is not boring stodgy textbook style.
I photocopied a few pages as reminders under the author’s headings “Beware of Adverbs and Adjectives”, “Avoid Flabby Verbs”, and “Nitpicking Present Participles”. I made copies and lists of reminders (cheat sheets) to evaluate my recent writing with what could fundamentally be improved. The easy part is flying through the book; the difficult part will be taking an honest look at my poems while editing this year…. but there’s always red wine to assist with that!
