Essayist. Preservationist. Mountain man. Inventor. John Muir may be California’s best-known icon. A literary naturalist and founder of the Sierra Club and Yosemite National Park, Muir left his legacy on the landscape and on paper. But the celebrity of John Muir does not tell the whole story. In Essential Muir, for the first time, Muir's selected writings include those that show his ecological vision without ignoring his racism, providing a more complete portrait of the man. Taking...

Endless ideas at your fingertips, and at the turn of a page...Need an idea for a short story or novel? Look no further than The Writer's Idea Thesaurus. It's far more than a collection of simple writing prompts. You'll find a vast treasury of story ideas inside, organized by subject, theme, and situation categories, and listed alphabetically for easy reference.Author and award-winning writing instructor Fred White shows you how to build out and customize these idea...

Let Great Reading Fuel Your WritingGreat writers readvoraciously and across many topics and genres. They read to learn, to research, to study the style of others, and to improve their own work. They read because they love the written word. But becoming well read takes time, dedication, and patience. The thought can be dauntingespecially when you're eager to get to your own writing.Fred White, author of The Daily Writer, helps you sort through the...

Make Writing a Part of Your Daily RoutineIt isn't always easy to carve out time to devote meaningful thought and energy to your writing. Hectic schedules, distractions, and creative blocks all too often interrupt the dream - postpone it for another day.But with 366 provocative entries - each addressing a specific facet of the writing craft, and accompanied by an in-depth reflection and a stimulating exercise - The Daily Writer provides you with eas...

Make Every Creative Moment CountFranz Kafka was an insurance agent. William Faulkner was a postmaster. Stephen King taught high school English, John Grisham was an attorney, and Toni Morrison worked in publishing. Though romantic fantasies of the writing life don't often include a day job, the fact is that most writers have one.If you find yourself among them, stealing moments late at night, early in the morning, or on your lunch break to write, The Nig...

Covering the entire process from story building to manuscript preparation and marketing, Jerry Cleaver shows the novice and experienced writer how to start writing and how to get immediate results.Readers will find everything they need to know about managing time, finding an idea, getting the first word down on the page, staying unblocked, shaping ideas into compelling stories, and submitting their work to agents and publishers.Immediate Fiction goes beyond the old "...

Where do you get your ideas?Its a question that plagues every writer. And once youve got an idea, what then? Ideas without a plan, without a purpose, are no more than pleasant thoughts. So how do you come up with those ideas, and how do you turn them into writing that will engage your reader?The Writers Idea Book is here to help you find the answers. Utilizing more than 400 prompts and exercises, youll generate intriguing ideas and plumb their ...

What's more important to a story: a gripping plot or compelling characters? Literary-minded novelists argue in favor of character-based novels while commercial novelists argue in favor of plot-based stories, but the truth of the matter is this: The best fiction is rich in both.Enter Plot Versus Character. This hands-on guide to creating a well-rounded novel embraces both of these crucial story components. You'll learn to:• Create layered characters by considering p...

Master the Elements of the Writing WorkshopThe great paradox of the writing life is that to be a good writer, you must be both interested in the world around you and comfortable working in solitude for hours on end. Fiction Writer's Workshop is designed to help you foster a strong sense of independenceof being and thinking on your own, of becoming self-evaluative without being self-criticalin order to accomplish what others seek in classroom groups....

Take Control of Your Writing Life!The creative process can be treacherous, even for the most experienced writer. Facing the blank page, staying inspired, sustaining momentum, managing competing priorities and coping with rejection are just a few of the challenges writers face regularly.The Productive Writer is your guide to learning the systems, strategies and psychology that can help you transform possibilities into probabilities in your writing l...

Discover the Difference Between a So-So Manuscript and a Novel Readers Can't ForgetWe've all read them: novels by our favorite authors that disappoint. Uninspired and lifeless, we wonder what happened. Was the author in a hurry? Did she have a bad year? Has he lost interest altogether?Something similar is true of a great many unpublished manuscripts. They are okay stories that never take flight. They don't grip the imagination, let alone the heart. They mer...

Build a Timeless, Original Story Using Hundreds of Classic Story Motifs!It's been said that there are no new ideas; but there are proven ideas that have worked again and again for all writers for hundreds of years.Story Structure Architect is your comprehensive reference to the classic recurring story structures used by every great author throughout the ages. You'll find master models for characters, plots, and complication motifs, along with guide...