Word Work: Surviving and Thriving As a Writer

In Word Work, Bruce Holland Rogers writes not about how to write, or how to publish, but about how to be a writer. Claiming to be "extraordinarily gifted with neuroses, even for a writer," Rogers is well-practiced in such writerly pursuits as procrastination, self-doubt, and rejection. Thus, he is perfectly able to write from experience. Rogers's tone is friendly, anecdotal, low-key. In each essay, he contemplates some aspect of the writing life, from writer's block (for which he recommends "atomizing" a writing project, by breaking it down into minute parts) to writing rituals; from quitting one's day job ("depends on how important writing is to you and how seriously you take your own death") to writing workshops. You can almost see him holding up some aspect of the writing life--procrastination, say--between his fingertips and his thumb, turning and examining it from all angles, then musing about how to deal with it. Good news: there are benefits, he discovers, to such impediments as depression, negative thinking, and trying to write with children in the house. --Jane Steinberg