The Writer’s Life

By Greenleaf Team - Apr 29 , 2007

By Lari Bishop

You can read as many books as you want about grammar, style, the well-crafted sentence, and the well-developed character, but if you want to be a writer, you need to think like a writer. And if you want to think like a writer, you need to live like a writer. A good first step is to understand how other successful writers live and think. You may not write like they write or live like they live, but I bet they have some insights that could help you improve your craft.

So here’s a list of books about writing and being a writer by people who live the writer’s life.

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

I love this book because Anne Lamott so clearly loves writing, and her stories should help you remember what it is you love about writing. And Lamott is a wonderful writer, so the book is a touching, inspiring read.

On Writing by Stephen King

Whether you like King novels or not, you can’t deny that he has a huge following and is incredibly prolific. And his character and scene development is some of the best in the industry. Of course, King attended my high school in Maine, which makes me a little prejudiced.

The Facts: A Novelist’s Autobiography by Phillip Roth

There aren’t many lessons here about how to be a writer, but it’s an interesting read and reveals the flaws of the autobiography genre. Roth is one of the great American novelists, so reading anything by him is likely to be enlightening.

These books may not make you a bestselling writer, but they offer inspiration, lessons, and habits that could help you along the way. Oh, and read the dictionary every day. It worked for Stephen King.