A Creative Writer's Kit
Judy Reeves
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2003 New World Library
ISBN: 1577314352

A Lively Companion & Spirited Muse for the Writing Life.

This is a boxed edition of cards & a little notebook of the prompts found in Judy Reeves' highly useful paperback A Writer's Book of Days.

As a Patience/Solitaire player from way back, taught by my great-aunt while visiting her ground floor flat in Lisbon (it was her morning's meditation), I enjoy the process of card playing. This kit has helped jumpstart many of my days of stalled creative writing.

In this brave new world of typing at computers, hand writing may seem an anachronistic waste of time. It isn't! Taking up a pen, a tool whose provenance reaches back into the shadows of time. & practising your penmanship is just like praying or meditating. It brings you into focus with your experience of life.

What's in A Creative Writer's Kit?
24 cards with such encouraging ideas as:
Keep Writing
Trust Your Pen
Ten Daily Habits That Make A Good Writer
False Starts
Slow Down
Let Go of Expectations
Take Risks
Tell the Truth
Stream of Consciousness
When Your Writing Embarrassess You
Kiss Your Frogs
Revising
& my favorites:
Don't Judge Your Writing
Pay Attention
Auditioning Words

The little book of Prompts & Practices is designed to help you thaw from the freeze of infinite choices about what to write. It gives you the first stepping stone across the Stream of Consciousness to becoming real & vulnerable.

Judy Reeves has a mission -- to get us writing -- not necessarily on the Great American Novel -- more on recording our own lives, on becoming articulate about our thoughts, on making the time for what satisfies us ... writing!

If you do not have Judy Reeves' book, & are into cards & brevity, then A Creative Writer's Kit will be a good addition to your daily writing exercises. You do do daily exercises, don't you?

A Creative Writer's Kit easily fits into a pocket or bag. Perhaps the only thing “missing” is a slot for a pen. It is especially good for students of & novices to the ancient art of writing. A perfect gift for birthdays, graduations & holidays.

Judy Reeves teaches writing & leads creative writing workshops. She has edited the Brown Bag Anthology - a collection of writings originating in her writing-practice groups. She is a member of the Second Story Writers, a women's writing ensemble which has produced two of her plays. She is co-founder of The Writing Center, a nonprofit literary arts organization. She lives in San Diego & is at work on her first novel.

More from Judy Reeves:
Writing Alone, Writing Together: A Guide for Writers and Writing Groups
(02/15/04)

Rebecca