Book Review: "How to Be a Writer" by Barbara Baig

Title: How to Be a Writer: Building Your Creative Skills Through Practice and Play

Author: Barbara Baig

Publisher: Writers Digest Books

ISBN, PUB Date: 978-1582978055, September 26, 2010

Reviewed by: Libby for Author Exposure

How to Be a Writer is a necessary addition to any writer’s toolkit. It’s clear, concise approach appeals to writers of all levels and expertise. Writing teacher and author, Barbara Baig, postulates with training and practice, anyone can learn to write. In this book, she emphasizes the importance of both daily writing and keeping a personal commitment to challenging one’s existing skills.

An aspiring writer myself, I was encouraged by Barbara’s discussion of performance vs. practice writing. Performance writing is done within the constraint of a deadline or an assignment. This type of writing, taught in schools, is how most of us learned to write. With this training the author says, “We are so conditioned to feel that every idea we come up with, no matter how slight, must be turned into a completed piece” (44). My personal struggle with performance writing makes free-writing a challenge. But, free-writing is precisely what Barbara means by practice writing. She says, “When we devote ourselves to practice rather than performance, then we can explore our materials with complete freedom” (67). Exploration and development is exactly what How to Be a Writer is all about.

Of course, the first step in the writing process is to collect material. You will learn just how to do this in the section titled “A Writer’s Powers”. Each chapter introduces a specific writing concept, such as creativity, observation, and curiosity, and the author encourages you to explore each one. Working with this book has helped reveal my strengths and weaknesses as a writer; it’s provided me with the focus necessary to nurture my natural writing voice, thus strengthening my craftsmanship.

I highly recommend this practical guide to anyone interested in developing their writing. I found the easy-to-follow writing prompts and exercises to be very useful! How to Be a Writer will definitely inspire you to explore your inner writer.