First part: Important, honest, will help get back to writing.
But second part: Publishing instructions, belongs in a separate book.
Reading the first part of this book - I couldn’t put it down. The words were touching and flowing, and I just wanted more.
Joy tells us about her own life with great sincerity. She shares the experience of stopping to create, stopping to write because of something someone said. A woman she admired, in her case. She was very young when she made the conscience decision to stop writing, and started believing she is not good enough. It is actually a more complex issue than that, a painful inner process, and she explores it thoroughly.
Sadly, many people are influenced in a similar way, stopping to write or paint, or be creative in their ways.
This book is very important. I appreciate the writer’s honesty, it can help many people to get over such a hump, and BE creative after all. Even after many lost years.
Joy goes on to give a gentle encouraging push to any creative person who has made this decision - not to write. She does that by sharing the story of how she herself started writing again, and by telling about her writing routine - It’s great, because it brings writing down to earth, shows us how in fact can we also bring writing into our routine. She makes it very simple, exploring solutions to routine challenges, and how to use to our advantage beliefs (true or false) about writers and artists in general.
Keep in mind, that the writing process is not the same for all writers. For example, my writing process is different than Joy’s, hence, the way I experience a block or remove one - are a bit different than hers. And Maybe your writing challenges and solutions are different. So, do not feel obligated to follow her ways, if you’ve tried them and they didn’t work for you. But first try!
Either way, there is a big solidarity and a big motivation to write, to be found in this book.
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The second part of the book explores publishing possibilities, and practical advice about publishing and promoting your self-published book. I have to say, I did not read this part thoroughly because I did not look for this kind of advice in this particular book.
I recommend being careful - depending on where you are on your path as a writer. If you are just beginning to write, or getting back into writing, I recommend putting down the book at this point. Because it’s a too big of a jump in my opinion. I believe it’s important to take it one step at a time. Believe in your poetry, it’s important and should be published, but don’t dive into how-to guides too soon. And as Joy puts it herself: “My main ‘want to’ in this project was to jumpstart the hearts of poets reluctant to put their words on the pages.”
On the other hand, if you are an active writer (like myself), you can find encouragement and inspiration in the first part, and then go on to find advice about publishing in the second part.
what singles out her advice from many other books (that I’ve read so far) about promoting your book through social media, is some wise advice about comments in social media. I am grateful for this section, it inspired me. She discusses: how to go about commenting, how to develop relationships in this world, and how to deal with negative comments about your own poetry.
Joy E. DeKok about creative writing: “If the words don’t come… I draw words, swirls, flowers, lines… It doesn’t have to makes sense or be beautiful. This is my time to simply be.”
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