A Writer's Space: Make Room to Dream, to Work, to Write

by Eric Maisel

Eric Maisel provides an original approach to creativity that focuses on having both a mental and physical space in which to create. It gives authors with writer’s block a personal creativity coach to help spark their imagination.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Self Help, Reference, Ebooks

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Eric Maisel, Ph.D., is the author of more than 40 books in the areas of creativity, coaching, mental health, and cultural trends. He is a psychotherapist and creativity coach, and writes for Psychology Today and Professional Artist Magazine and presents workshops internationally.

Reviews

[Emma Sea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an unexpected little gem. Maisel calls me on all my bullshit excuses for why I do not work.

This review thoroughly summarizes the book.

One of my favourite ideas is simply writing for 15 minutes every four hours. 8am, midday, 4pm, 8pm; write. He also addresses issues of space/place, which I found very useful.

I read a library copy, but I'll be buying a copy to keep.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth owning. Worth re-reading. Very very good book.



Lessons:



1. Moving words from your brain to the page is a prolonged act of thinking and feeling that requires that you inhabit a physical space. Any given physical space will do a better or poorer job of serving this process: how good a job does yours do?



2. Some writing spots are more congenial than others. Find your best spot; or create it, if it doesn't exist, by pushing furniture around, by reclaiming the junk room, by doing whatever is necessary.



3. Your writing space is a literal space and it's also a metaphoric space. Both need protection, the first with explicit rules, the second with strong intentions.



4. It matters what you do in your writing space. Do the right things.



5. In addition to your primary writing space, locate one or more alternate writing spaces.



6. There is no place you need to go in order to write, not even out of bed. You are the writing machine, the writing space, everything.



7. Instead of scheduling one writing stint a day, schedule several. Wouldn't it be nice to write more than once a day?



8. There is time per se. Then there is time as experience. You want to carve out hours for your writing and you want to experience those hours in a certain way, your mind undistracted, your heart open, your watch broken.



9. The writing life is defined by the succession of choices you make, primary among them whether or not you will write.



10. It is your destiny to write, but it is only a potential destiny. Assure your fate by creating the right space(s) and living and working there.



11. To be a writer you must write, but being a writer is not about writing. The next time you worry your brain about whether you can write, slap yourself hard. Everyone can write. Your worry should be whether you are brave enough to vanish into the depths of your neuronal circuitry and come back with creations. You are a diver, not a writer; an explorer, not a writer; an inventor, not a writer; a magician, not a writer.



12. There is some delicate, delectable material up there in your head, neurons and synapses and neural transmitters and all sorts of fancy machinery that the universe has gone to a lot of trouble to create for writers. Don't waste it by turning neurons over to tasks that are the equivalent of getting your socks matched. Every freed neuron is a tiny fraction of a great idea and you - and only you - are its liberator.



13. In the space between your ears, more morphing will occur than has happened in the whole history of natural selection. That makes you something of a god, but a powerless, wacky, and determined one. Enjoy your divinity. If you would like it to be otherwise, better drive a cab or run a corporation. In our mad world, where books appear, we must live with the spectacular nature of the creative process, where profusion and confusion dance together.



14. Mind space is your main space. You can fill it up with clutter and chatter, you can let its contents sink you into depression, or you can aim for creative mindfulness and mind mastery. You are a slave to every thought of which you are not the master.



15. An emotionally intelligent, emotionally mature person does not strive to avoid feeling and does not hope against hope that unwanted feelings will stop arising. Rather, they monitor their emotions and master them by embracing the ones they want and discarding the ones they don't. This isn't an easy practice, but it is an invaluable one.



16. Individuality has emotional consequences. Nature may have designated you as one of her individuals, but she has not provided you with a blueprint to follow. You will have to work that out, even while nursing a pain in your heart and a pain in your head.



17. Learn to centre quickly. You could spend hours each day getting ready to write - or ten seconds. Which seems more advantageous and economical?



18. Figure out what you want from yourself, not what you want for yourself. Head in that direction.



19. We make many kinds of spaces for ourselves: noisy spaces, busy spaces, unsettled spaces, and sometimes calm, self-reflective spaces. Make a calm self-reflective space for yourself by growing quiet. Then consider what your writing life needs - and how you'll meet those needs.



20. You have a coach available to help you reflect on your writing life, improve your writing life, and make sure that you maintain a writing life. That coach is you. Whenever you need some writing advice, enter a "reflective space" and coach yourself to your own best answers.



21. Commit to writing or commit to reflecting on what is stopping you from writing. Do one or the other.



22. In the space where imagining happens, worlds arise if you kindle your desire. Do not be so cool, detached, and phlegmatic that you starve yourself and your art. Burn! In the light of that flame you will see sights worth describing.



23. Hold setting as a big idea, as big as characters, plot, theme, or any aspect of the writer's craft.



24. You get to use your imagination only if you allow yourself to use your imagination. Like an omnipotent evil elf, you have the power to completely cut yourself off from your imagination. Enlist your good elf self, the part of you that wants to bring new worlds into existance.



25. Use your powers of imagination so regularly and so naturally that every inch of your writing feels richly imagined., whether it's the first moody sentence or the heart-pounding conclusion.



26. You can play it safe or you can speak your mind. Why venture into the public space of readers and audiences if your goal is to keep your real thoughts private? If you are bothering to write, say what you mean.



27. Pepper public spaces with some engaged writing in which you can stand up for what you believe. You can still be charming; you can still be amusing; you can still be witty. Just be sure to stand up.



28. We all censor ourselves. Think carefully about whether you want to draw a different line in the sand and reveal more of your truth in your writing.



29. Take the occasional writing retreat, making Paris, London, some Hawaiian black beach, a cabin in Maine, or that bed-and-breakfast across town your writing space for a glorious busman's week.



30. Waiting for meaning is a mistake. Seeking meaning is a mistake. Accepting meaning is a mistake. Bemoaning the absence of meaning is a mistake. The only authentic path is to make meaning. You stand up, gather your wits, and exclaim, "I have declared!" Then you clap yourself on the back and get started.



31. Existential space is shifting space. make appropriate meaning today; tomorrow make the meaning appropriate for tomorrow.



32. Existential space is the space you inhabit when you want to consciously make decisions in the realm of meaning. You go there to shine the light of your existential intelligence on questions such as "What should I write?" and "How should I live?" Go there!



33. If you won't choose, you can't create.



34. There will always be interruptions. How will you handle them?



35. Become more creative by improving your character.

[Jery Schober · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I expected.
I thought this is about the perfect workplace for a writer - which room, desk, coffee shop works bests for writers.
But this are just the first few chapters, then it's about a writer's headspace and ends with a philosphical discourse.
Not a bad book, but not as useful as I had hoped.

[Mary Kenyon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent little book on how to find space (in your life, your home, and your head) to write. I've been writing for 30 years, and currently hard at work on a contracted book, and I still found inspiration and encouragement in this. Will definitely pick up more books by this author.

[Sally Kilpatrick]

I've had this book for a long time, and it's another argument for my theory of God's syllabus. Basically, you read things when you need them. I picked this up. It's an odd little book, but it had some things I needed to hear. Specifically,

"Creating something that could move a listener constitute[s] an act of engaged creativity. This is a primary way that a writer can stand up for what she believes, but filling public spaces with her creative efforts."

also

"A writer can do his part in the struggle to keep civilization afloat in two different ways: as a person and in his art."

and
"We ned our writers to bring their best efforts to the struggle against the reactionary forces that, wherever and whenever they can, tyrannize others. We need our writers to create iconic work that speaks truth and that provides us with a powerful shorthand of thinking and speaking--a shorthand such as "Kafkaesque" and "Orwellian." We need these things more every day."

Oh and

"The domestic and worldwide forces lined up against reason and justice are considerably more powerful, more ruthless, and more single-minded than we are. They have slogans and enforcers: we seem to always only have ourselves. Because we seem only to have ourselves, we feel exhausted and defeated even before we begin. How can I, a lone individual, make a dent? We feel past absurdity, past irony, past despair, and find ourselves disempowered and equal only to watching television. And yet it is exactly where we find ourselves that we must make our significance."

Lest you think the entire book is in that vein, no. All of those quotes came from one chapter. The rest of the book meanders through physical space, emotional space, etc. Some of the advice is very good. Some didn't resonate with me. YMMV. There's one section at the end where a fictional character talks to a spider. That really wasn't for me.

BUT. That one chapter in this book that I've had for at least 10 years spoke to me, and that's what's important.

[Wes Locher · Rating 3 out of 5]

My main motivation for picking up Eric Maisel's A Writer's Space was because I had recently moved into a new home and was having some trouble setting up my home office to be a comfortable environment in which to write in. This book had a lot of helpful advice on how to set up a good area for yourself where you can be creative and the good energy can flow.

The rest of he chapters on this book deal with mental and meta-physical "spaces" which went a little deeper than what I was looking for. Near the end of the book, Maisel gets into some crazy existential stuff that might make your head hurt. I just write funny stories, so it was a little too deep for my profession. Since it's a small book, I powered through it all, never wanting to pass up good writing advice. But in the end, the target market for this book is people who want to write, but have a million excuses not to do so. It's about centering yourself, making the time to write, and then creating the book or novel you've been dreaming about. There is a lot of good advice within the pages and were I weighed down with a serious case of writers block then this would be a helpful volume to have handy.

The author does a good job of encouraging the reader to do the writing and remains helpful and supportive throughout. He covers tips for both fiction and non-fiction, so any future author can take something from reading this small, yet very inspirational book. Want to write, but unsure of how to get started? Then I highly recommend this book to you! If you're looking for some very deep writing on existential concepts, then oddly enough, you'll find those here as well.

[Nary Kirit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Details of the book:

Author- Eric Maisel

Title- A Writer's Space: Make Room to Dream, to Work, to Write

Publisher- Adams Media

Year of publication-2010

Eric Maisel’s A Writer’s Space is a wonderful guide to writing your fiction and non-fiction works. It provides useful techniques to overcome the problems that a writer faces in their journey to good writing. I recommend this book to anyone who faces issues like procrastination and fear of being too bold and offensive in their writing (just like me). Even if it is simply the fear that you might not ‘have it’ in you to be a writer, I am sure this book would be a good reminder of how often we forget what it is to actually ‘have it’ in ourselves.
I love the fact that the book is so clear and concise. Every chapter is very short and crisp, with the motto and questions associated with it found at the end of the chapter. The author divides the book into eight good sections about every possible kind of space a writer might have to make to write better. Apart from these, the last section is where the author employs his creative writing skills to make one see how amazing writing can be if we simply learn to channel our thoughts and let the words float their way toward the reader.
On a more serious note, the book is a real bummer for someone who likes to see writing as a fantastic talent that only some people have, as the book advocates defining writing as a process and not a talent. Thus, anyone can write so long as they realize what goes into good writing practice. For the author, and I agree with him on this, of course, writing is a skill cultivated through discipline and not a talent that one is simply born with.

[Elizabeth Gibbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite thing about this book is that it made me FEEL like a writer. Exploring where to write and what to write about, and discussing problems that are common to writers made me feel like someone else in the world understood my life, and didn't judge me for it. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it slowly, rarely more than a chapter at a time. The ideas were encouraging to me and if you're a writer or would like to be, then this book is a must-read!

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book fell short of my expectations. First off, there's barely any information on creating a physical writer's space. Most of the advice given is focused on emotional and mental space.

There is some good advice in here—particularly the sections on creative mindfulness and the importance of centering yourself—but 80% of the book is just the same advice given over and over, in different words. I found myself skimming through the second half.

[Cheryl Licata · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are lots of good writing tips in this book that I think would be useful for writers and wanabees. I was hooked from the beginning when Maisel stated -- "Your goal is to focus, canalize your energy, and muster your resources. Find a place where you can pray poems and praise prose. Your writing space needs a chair, a table, silence, and a little awe."

[Suzanne Arcand · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5

[Virginie M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely little book for all writers who need to be more mindful about creating a sacred space for their writing. Quick read and I enjoyed the guiding prompts at the end of each chapter.

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kinda funny how this book contains all I have been trying to teach my writing partner over the past year.

[Joe Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary book. Maisel helps us understand the importance of a writer's mental space as well as physical space. Rich with insight.

[John’aLee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book picked up at the Star, Library in Idaho while visiting my daughter. I didn’t realize it at first, but the author was one I know well. I love his book on ‘Writers in Paris’. A book I’ve read over and over again.

This was a quick and inspiring read, and one I will have to add to my library.

[Rod Raglin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Are writer’s born or made?

Can anyone become a writer, specifically a writer of fiction, or is the proclivity to writing an innate characteristic?

This is a question I often ask myself, particularly when participants in my creative writing circles ask for writing prompts or inquire where to find story ideas. As if the life you live and all the people you interact with is not material enough.

It’s then that I think these people are not writers, but instead fantasize about the clichéd version of a writer’s life. The distinction could be further defined as those who ‘want’ to write, as opposed to those who ‘have’ to write.

I have to write and, indeed, am writing all the time, at least in my mind. I constantly watch people and ask myself questions about: the way their dressed - what are they trying to say; their activities - whom are they waiting for; and their mannerisms - why is she so jumpy. What would my latest character do in this situation, I wonder? Plot scenarios continually run through my mind. ‘What if’ is a question and the motivation.

So when I sit down it’s like a floodgate opens. I write.

I can write anywhere at anytime. Often I simply can’t wait to write. I grab a napkin, an envelope, the edge of a newspaper and scribble words. I look forward to it, long for it, and find it deeply satisfying. It’s a release, a meditation, a method to make sense of it all.

If you’re one of those that fantasize about writing but are too conflicted to do any, then A Writer’s Space, Make Room to Dream, to Work, to Write, by Eric Maisel, is the book for you.

Maisel is a creativity coach who holds a PH.D. in Counseling Psychology. He believes that writers aren’t borne, they’re cajoled, coaxed, and coached into being. The first step to becoming one is to pick, protect, and honor a physical space specifically for writing. Maisel would have you go on a vision quest to locate the best place in your home to write. Once you’ve divined the location, you must then prepare a security pledge on how you will protect and do the right things in your writing space.

Evidently, the author doesn’t consider life and people enough of a stimuli for a writer and offers all kinds of incentives to inspire one to write. These include a way to access your ‘self-help neurons’ to enter into a state of ‘creative mindfulness’. The next time you decide to be angry, Maisel tells the reader, use creative mindfulness to decide not to be angry, or, I suppose, just say ‘no to anger’. It’s as simple as that.

As well as the appropriate spiritual location to enable you to write, Maisel suggests there are various psychological and emotional ‘spaces’ to psych you up, chill you out, or otherwise evoke or enhance your inner muse. They include an emotional space, reflective space, imagined space, public space, and existential space.

At the end of each chapter, the author offers up lessons to help you enter these ‘spaces’ which will allow you to ‘desire worlds into existence; discover the ‘way of the meaning maker’; and, ‘not be quite so nice’.

If you’re not ‘spaced out’ before applying these techniques and exercises, I imagine you will be afterwards.

There’s also an exercise to ‘upgrade your personality with twelve quick centering incantations’. This might be useful to many of the authentic writers I’ve met since they tend to be reflective, more observers than a participants, and comfortable with their own company, or, depending on your point of view, arrogant, anti-social, loners.

A good portion of A Writer’s Space is given over to anecdotes about the author’s clients/patients, an incredibly flakey sounding bunch who imagine themselves as writers but don’t have the guts and determination to sit down and actually write something. Success comes for the doctor not when one of his charges gets published, but when, after all the positive nurturing and self-help mumbo-jumbo, they finally, actually make marks on paper.

If you haven’t drawn any conclusion on this book from what I’ve told you so far, I’ll close this review with a sampling of Maisel’s profundity:

“You have been hungering for years to write a certain piece while simultaneously curbing your enthusiasm and by curbing it killing it.”

If you can relate to that statement, I’m sorry for you. It’s likely you’ll never be a writer.

[Imran Shah · Rating 4 out of 5]

If this book cannot kick start you writing, there is nothing in the world which can do so !!! Eric Maisel writes so freely, like water smoothly running down stream. I got so much fascinated by seeing how the author brings in his innovation in every sentence after sentence. To my amusement, the author briefly goes over so profound intricate topics with so much fluency. For an instance, I had read tons of material on emotional intelligence, yet this book gives me a holistic view in a few pages encompassing the entire subject's quintessence.

[James Heiney · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a really good book so far and has kept me motivated to write. There have been a lot of good tips so far...from organizing my physical space to keeping me motivated.

Now that I've finished the book, I had to drop the rating. While the first 150 pages of the book are good, Maisel gets into some philosophical areas towards the end of the book. Some people might like that, but it was little more than philosophy 101 for me.

[Sonide · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this hands-on how to book, Maisel introduces the reader and writer in us different techniques he's found useful to bringing his work to fruition. My favorite had to be the space for writing and the protecting it, technique. He talked about developing a pattern with yourself, so that your brain can recognize when it's time to start delivering so you can have a more successful writing session. Overall useful book for me as I discovered my love for writing.

[Michele Garber · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent guide to creating a productive workspace! Can't say I always follow good advice, but there's plenty here to be had. A friendly book that addresses not just your physical environment, but your mental, emotional, and existential needs as well. Lots of great exercises to help you determine what your needs are and how to achieve them.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has all the right elements but didn't quite take off for me. Probably could be very helpful for others-it just didn't ignite any passion in me so it never became anything more than intellectually interesting. I think a book like this has a very personal relationship with its reader and like any relationship, when it works it's probably great.

[Ani · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was really cute, sweet and informative. I didn't do any of the exercises because I'm reading other books that have similar sorts of exercises. I just wanted this to be light and informative and it was exactly that.

The most impact it made on me was that I don't have to feel guilty at all about wanting to write on my couch, curled up with a blanket, instead of at my desk. Woo!

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

An awesome book - very good to read in pieces at a time. Its encouraging and provides some excellent insight into the writing process, as well as life choices and attitudes a writer needs to be healthy & productive.

[Catherine Stapleton]

I'm still trying to digest this one.

[Shauna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick read chockfull of ideas for finding good physical and mental places to write.

[K.M. Weiland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not heavy-duty (and not really concerned with "space"), but an energetic pep talk with a smattering of excellent thoughts.

[Donna]

I continue trying to make room in my life "to dream, to work, to write." It is time to reorganize my schedule and actually pursue what I want from life. Let's hope this book can help.

[Tedi31]

Bought: May 1, 2013
Location: Booksale (Robinson's Bacolod)
Price: P75