The Productive Writer: Tips and Tools to Help You Write More, Stress Less & Create Success
By Sage Cohen
from Writers’ Digest Books
Review by Rae Richen
Sage Cohen writes, “I am a poet and a business writer, left-handed and right footed.”
Out of this dichotomy, she is able to speak to all of us about our art and about creating a business in support of our art. Her inspirational self tells us how she maintains communication between creative-poet Cohen and linear-rational-business Cohen, so that creative self can enjoy success. I’m finishing this review before deadline so I can read more and start to use her ideas in my own writing life.
I recommend The Productive Writer as a mutual read for any fellowship of writers. Worked on together, the ideas in this book can bring your group to a higher level of dedication and achievement.
This reviewer, a writer, teacher, musician and the main gopher for a large writers’ organization, must make the disparate parts of my life work smoothly without driving my family and colleagues nutso. Sage Cohen has suggestions I need – ideas that promise to hone the sharp edges of my herky-jerky, compartmentalized life and allow the creative me to relax and have fun.
For many of you who filled out the OWC survey, asking for help with marketing, and with new web-based opportunities, there is a lot in The Productive Writer. Cohen gives us a carefully considered chapter called Publishing and Landing Gigs. By the time you arrive at this chapter, she has discussed what it really means to practice professionalism in your writing. Now she gives you clear, usable ways to set goals, grow in your profession and establish a professional work and marketing regimen. She encourages your successful self to continue to improve.
Cohen also offers pointed ideas about why, as successful writers, we must work to maintain a reasonable relationship with our genius and our muse. For me, her chapter on navigating transitions is very important, and I imagine this is true for many of us. Her suggestions for entering the zone, exiting the zone, and transitioning from work world to writing world are fresh and helpful.
Writers’ Digest has packaged this important book in a format small enough to carry with you. The layout lends and air of visual excitement to the whole. And Sage Cohen has organized the book so you can look at the beginning of any chapter to see what will be covered. This is not a read-straight-through book. It is a book to visit and revisit often.
The Productive Writer is a book which will charm you into writing more, stressing less and creating success. More help for your writing can be found at Sage Cohen’s blogsite, http://pathofpossibility.com.