Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction and Other Dilemmas in the Writer's Life

by Bonnie Friedman

“In the spirit of Annie Dillard's The Writing Life, Friedman...gives heartfelt counsel to those who need to be coaxed into the creative process."—Washington Post

An indispensable guide for writers that explores the emotional side of writing and offers insightful advice on overcoming writer’s block, procrastination, guilt, and more. 

Charting the emotional side of the writer's life, Writing Past Dark is a writing companion to reach for when you feel lost and want to regain access to the memories, images, and the ideas inside you that are the fuel of strong writing.

Combining personal narrative and other writers' experiences, Bonnie Friedman explores a whole array of emotions and dilemmas writers face—envy, distraction, guilt, and writer's block—and shares the clues that can set you free so that you can write the book you’ve always dreamed of writing.

Supportive, intimate, and reflective, Writing Past Dark is a comfort and resource for all writers.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Crafts, Essays, Reference, Spirituality, Self Help

146 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Dona's Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wonder if this is a book that you only like if you need it. I say that because, when I read Bonnie Friedman's Writing Past Dark last year, I gave it a meager rating, called the prose "esoteric" (and I wasn't being generous), and complained I couldn't connect with the material. This year, I reread the text and I absolutely loved it. I'm also so blocked you could cut me up and put me on crackers. And since this book purports to address just that kind of dilemma--I dived back in.

I think one reason why I liked my second reading better is because I took the time to read Friedman's introduction, "Why I Wrote This Book." I found knowing her intent helpful once I started encountering some of her challenging concepts. After all, in Writing Past Dark she explores the writer's internal emotional life. For the best of us, that life can be the darkest of them.

But also, I was shopping for squarepants when I started my second reading. I hadn't written a word in months; worse, I saw garbage in my completed work, so I couldn't send out submissions or handle rejections. So besides having a better understanding of Friedman's purpose when she starts talking about writers' envy in the book, I didn't repeat my initial misinterpretation (Who's envy? Your envy! Not my envy. Screw your writers' envy!). Instead, I found myself in the material. I didn't turn my pinocchio-nose up at the idea of ever being envious of anyone, let alone another fellow writer. How pious I was. How easy it is to be that way when the fingers are pen dancing and the stories are selling.

Also, I very much enjoyed Friedman's writing, so I don't know why I nailed it a year ago; something about this book made me very grumpy when I first read it. That's why I first suggested if for only writers who need it, who need insight into the complex emotional challenges, like block, that we writers face.

Hope you all are safe and doing okay. Thinking about all you creatives stuck indoors 💜

Finished 2020
Recommended for experienced writers

[Christina Kline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read, and loved, this book when it first came out nearly 30 years ago; it has always been on my shelf of treasured books. I was honored to be asked to write a blurb for the new edition, coming in June, and I meant every word when I said, "Wise, intimate, and profoundly honest, this classic guide is an essential volume for any writer. This book is on my short shelf of books that I consider essential. I pull it out often. Brilliant and philosophical, it is a companion in dark times and provides perspective in giddy ones."

[el · Rating 3 out of 5]

this brief little sojourn into bonnie friedman's interior world was entertaining and eyebrow-raising by turns. a nonfiction book—or collection of essays—that claims to be about the emotional life of a writer is its own can of worms. to put it frankly: writers are some of the most annoying people on earth. giving them a platform with which to focalize their fraught, hypersensitive psyches feels like a mistake for that reason exactly.

there's not a lot of craft or concrete guidance in writing past dark. it's full of self-important or self-pitying filler, and stuffed to the brim with mixed metaphors that sometimes work but more often grate. the majority of the book sets the reader in a void-like space deeply reminiscent of the "SB-129" episode of spongebob. its best moments take place in real settings, like madrid or iowa. its worst? basically everything else lol.

mostly, it's full of alarming emotional detours during which friedman attempts to justify her desire to fictionalize the physical or mental struggles of certain family members (and to give other writers license to do the same), and where she unleashes (uncensored) private grievances she has with those same family members. one example is her choice to write at length about growing up with a fat sister, which later culminates in this passage from the chapter titled "anorexia of language: why we can't write" (yes, friedman compares her writer's block to anorexia, which she does not suffer from, and then circles back to her own fatphobia):

My voracious, devouring sister, whom I had grown up accommodating, had been unleashed. She was in me, and still punishing me now, twenty years later, for wanting to put my book out in the world because in the perpetually frozen era of our childhood it threatened her. How did it threaten her? It incited her envy. It was something entirely my own, an independent source of pleasure that seemed to enlarge me and to make her more ordinary, more likely to be left behind.

this is something that belongs in a therapist's office with a closed door policy, not in your essay collection about being a writer. if i was friedman's sister, i would sue for emotional damages. no, you are not a magical fairy because you know how to pick up a pen, and no, not everyone around you is seething with jealousy because you've sold a book (that is, i'm afraid, what we call projection...just pick up a copy of this to read all about friedman's chronic fits of envy re: all of her writerly friends and peers).

my feelings on this book are best summarized by that one instagram story that goes, "i think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much❤️." maybe if writers thought less about themselves, they'd stop wasting their own time on anorexia metaphors and start spending it on their next project. 2.5/5.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I started reading this book thinking it would have some helpful reflections on the various problems writers face in their work. Instead (to quote the author herself, in the chapter dealing with writing school), what I got was “...scenes so vaporous, so fogged with verbiage, that the reader emerged merely irritated, as if he’d been blindfolded for an hour while someone whispered excitedly in his ear.”

This book seems like a sticky, self-indulgent trip down a rabbit hole, where much is written but almost nothing said.

[Ann Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thought-provoking collection of essays about the writing life.

Here are a few noteworthy quotes from the book:

“We should be told: Write fast, write close to the bone, write for ten hours straight until you’re not thinking in words anymore, but in colors, in smells, in waves of memory. Right what you care about. Don’t write one more word you don’t care about. Don’t waste any more of your life on what does not matter to you. Write only what matters to you—those scenes, those dialogues. Get messy. Before you get neat, get very, very messy. Write until you are more alive than you have ever been before.” (pg. 60)

“To gain the book, one must give up all hope for the book. It is the only way the book can get written.” (pg. 111)

“Every day I must prove to myself I am a writer. The knowledge goes away in my sleep. What I wrote yesterday was paltry, meager, so flawed it is barely anything. Or, if it is good, I am no longer the person who could write it.” (pg. 114)

[Julie Ehlers · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was kind of odd. Some aspects of it were helpful, and I underlined a lot of passages I can see myself returning to. But a lot of this seemed like excerpts from stories or memoirs Bonnie Friedman started but never finished (or finished but never got published)--they mostly seemed out of place and the prose was overwrought. I just kept waiting for her to get back to the point, but if all those passages had gotten cut the book would've been about 30 pages long. I'm glad I read this, but at the same time I don't think I'd recommend it to anyone.

[Kressel Housman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whenever I come across a book about writer’s block, I can never resist it. Part of me hopes the book will have The Answer to My Problems, even though I’ve read enough of these books to know that the problem is internal and books can only help in the short term. What I liked about this book is that the author seemed to understand precisely that. She offered no cures or techniques and very little advice. Instead, she related her own experiences as a writer and gives over the insights she’s come to along the way. In that sense, the book was like a memoir: one human being relating her life experience so that other human beings can recognize themselves and gain from it.

The main way I saw myself in this book was in the search for The Answer to My Problems, which isn’t quite the way the author phrases it, but she does apply the drive for success to writers’ dreams of writing school and of publication itself. Many of us are dreaming of being “discovered,” but when we finally do get that acceptance letter, and our lives aren’t magically transformed into happily-ever-after, we run the risk of becoming cynical, laughing at our old egoistic ambition, yet secretly harboring it all the while. That’s when writer’s block sets in. Our old dreams get modified by reality, but we lose faith in ourselves with it, or we just lose motivation without all that vainglory driving us. How does a writer get past that point? By writing anyway, not because you’re going to produce a blockbuster, but because you love the writing process.

Now, these aren’t original points. Plenty of other writing books say exactly the same thing. But the book is worth reading for its contemplative tone. I’ve given the book a 4, but there are some 5-star gems of wisdom here. If you’re a writer, you’ll see yourself, and as a reader, you’ll appreciate it.

[Nairy Fstukh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was exquisite but she talks about Freud entirely too often.

[Literary Mama]

As the title indicates, this is a book about how to create faith and hope in the writer's soul, when every rejection says you should stop. I firmly believe Friedman has saved many a writer's career with this one, and as my thank-you to her for writing it, I mention it to any and all readers and writers. Get a copy of this for your bookshelf.

Read Literary Mama's full review here: http://www.literarymama.com/reviews/a...

[Suz Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good nuggets, but very heavy on the personal stories, making it read more like a memoir than a writing craft book.

[Julene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction and Other Dilemmas in the Writer's Life, by Bonnie Friedman, is one of those books written for writers who are struggling with all the legendary issues writers have to get the writing done. With eight chapters with intriguing chapter titles like: The Paraffin Density of Wax Wings: Writing School, or Message from a Cloud of Flies: On Distraction, she writes stories to make her points.

Lots of people love this book, and the writing is excellent. There are many good quote inserted, which I always enjoy reading in any book. This is a second book by Bonnie Friedman, both qualify as memoir in essays.

[bookswithanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Seit einer Woche “quäle” ich mich etwas durch. Leider ist nicht das bei rausgekommen, was ich mir erhofft hatte.
Die Autorin schweift so oft ab und man wartet, ob und wann sie wieder zum Punkt, weswegen man das Buch eigentlich aufgeschlagen hatte, zurück kommt, doch das tut sie nicht.
Sie teilt viel aus ihrem eigenen Leben, was gut ist, wenn es denn irgendwie Bezug zueinander gehabt hätte aber es wirkt irgendwie nur wie eine Anreihung von Essays. Ich hatte mir erhofft, dass ich einiges für mich und den Schreibprozess mitnehmen kann und die ersten 10% hatten das etwas bestätigt aber kurz danach leider gar nicht mehr.

[Alice Dark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've dipped into this book many times over the years and get something new out of it each time. Bonnie Friedman is bold about looking at some of the uncomfortable feelings that come up for writers, especially when they are first setting out. Her writing is gorgeous and full of exceptional and memorable images.
This is a classic that should be on every writer's shelf.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bonnie Friedman shares her experiences with the things---being envious of other writers, trying to write about people that are still alive, writer's block, and, believe it or not, even success---that pull us away from the writing life.

Beautiful writing in this book about writing.

[Kathleen Flynn]

I read this book once before, perhaps 15 years ago, and wrote a rather mean-spirited review on Amazon (which I have recently deleted). I don't know what prompted me to give it another try, or in general why I am reading so many books of writing advice lately. I guess I need help?

The metaphors are lovely, and this is a fast read. It's more a description of the psychological blocks to writing than an practical advice about how to overcome them, though the book's description might lead you to expect the latter, and to feel let down when it is not forthcoming, as I think I was last time.

Even more than it did 15 years ago, this book strikes me as old-fashioned, a time capsule offering a worldview both familiar and exotic: my own youth, the world I grew up in and thought as "how things were," instead of just one moment in time, full of fashions that will fade, assumptions that will no longer be true, hot writers of the day since cooled.

I find this comforting rather than absurd, but I do not mean by that that I wish to live in that past. Everything changes; things are changing with particular swiftness right now, between President Trump, the pandemic, and Black Lives Matter. And things that seem strange and new right now will eventually become just part of the texture of our world. What this has to do with Writing Past Dark is only that it's led to me think about how everything is a product of its time, even those that don't obviously seem so, like a book of writing advice. Some products age better than others, seeming still true; some become actively offensive in the light of changing sensibilities; others simply seem quaint. Which one you think Writing Past Dark has become ultimately depends on your own perspective.

[Stella Budrikis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author Bonnie Friedman wrote this book because she couldn't find anything else to read on the subject of how to deal with the emotional hazards of being a writer - the envy, fear and distraction included in the title. As she says, most books written for writers are about technique and marketing (though I can think of several other books that tackle at least some of the issues she writes about) .

But the gems of wisdom in her book are encased in such ornate settings that they're almost lost to view. Not that the style of writing is not enjoyable to read. It's just that we learn so much about the author's life, family tensions, education, emotional traumas and travels on the way to the occasional conclusion about what can be learned from this about the writing life. It's all so personal and intimate that it becomes difficult to see how her hard-won wisdom is applicable to other writers. The book is an interesting read about one writer's experiences, but I didn't gain from it what I'd hoped for.

[Kasandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this largely disappointing, with most of Friedman's anecdotes to be both too lengthy and unfortunately boring. However, there were 3 true takeaways that I will quote: 1. "Those who write do have a trick. They lean on the process of writing the way an unsteady person leans on a cane." 2. "Writing teaches writing." 3. "If, while writing, you must always be proving that you write well, the writing will suffer."

Otherwise, if you want a book that will encourage your writing and give you great tips (and that is good enough to return to for re-reading), I recommend Brenda Ueland's "If You Want to Write" and Stephen King's "On Writing". Those are much better books.

[Julianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're ever feeling unmotivated, despondent, restless, distracted, or dissatisfied with your writing, I suggest reading a few pages from Bonnie Friedman's "Writing Past Dark." Her words resonate inspiration and encouragement within the aspiring writer - her descriptions are vivid and sharp, and her passion for the craft seeps through and beyond the pages.

[Elle Wong · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is exactly what I needed. Fantastic, honest prose that looks at writer's block from many different angles (expectation, envy, fear, distraction, etc). Would recommend this to anyone who is serious about writing in a long term sense.

[Marilyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reread this book at least once a year. It's rich, it repays the rereading.

[Patty · Rating 2 out of 5]

”A writer’s work, then, is to let us see what is being said. Daily life is always extraordinary when rendered precisely. We can unlock our lives with a pencil tip.

This is why people read: to have experiences. We have all had experiences. We have them every day. …If they are profound to us, we can make them profound to a reader, but it takes work, we must let the reader see what we saw, touch what we touched, hear what we thought and felt.”

I am guessing that this was the right book at the wrong time. Although I have no desire to write, I am usually fascinated by how writers think and what they feel they need to do a good job writing. When I saw this title in my library’s catalog, I was intrigued. I was also captivated by the first essay in the book.

However, the farther I got into these essays the less interested I became. I totally blame myself. Friedman is a good writer and she has thought long and carefully about the writing life. I, on the other hand, have been very distracted by life. That made it hard for me to stay engaged with her writing. The last two months, my reading habits have been out of synch. I have picked up a dozen books and finished very few of them.

If you are working to be a writer and have not read these essays, I think you should skim through this collection. I think you will find Friedman’s thoughts helpful. I hope that when I encounter her again, I will be able to concentrate better on her words.

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book was ok. Most of the time while reading this I wasn't really sure what she was talking about. She tells various stories about the struggles and things she learned in her writing career but I felt like she didn't really get to the point of it or coalesce what she learned into actionable principles or insights. That being said, there was still a few tidbits of things I learned from reading

My favorites:

"If you loved to sing, or paint, or to write poems - if you really loved it - you would not be concerned with whether you are famous or not. Our present education is rotten because it teaches us to love success and not what we are doing. The result has become more important than the action."

"On the one hand, we must write for ourselves. On the other, we much not forget the world. We must sit in our nook, our mental nook… and yet image always the needs of the audience."

[Sarah Buchmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book may save the lifes of desperate writers! Do you feel deep in your heart that you're a writer but doubt this every other second? This book might help you making sense of those contradictions. For beginners as well as for the fab and famous.

[Angela Kidd Shinozaki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found that it was the last chapter that resonated with me the most. I love the idea about success seen as the Holy Grail and viewed in the Other (who is that stylish woman photographed on the back cover of your favorite novel.) I really like this line "If someone discovers you, is it the same as you discovering yourself?" I also like this line "success makes some people rush desperately and others dawdle painfully or sit in an absolute seizure of writer's block." Essentially the book is saying write what is truest to yourself right now in this moment and without qualification. Good advice!

[Trudi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I re-read this book every few years. It's a comfort and inspiration. Funny and insightful. A real solace. The subtitle says it all: envy, fear, distrations and other dilemmas in the writer's life.

[Kelly Lynn Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Writing Past Dark" isn't a "how to" guide for writing; more like a companion for those dark times when you're full of doubt and fear and are sure you're the only one who thinks her book is awful. Friedman's essays address many of the major emotional pitfalls writers come across, from jealousy of a writer-friend who "made it" to the pain of writer's block to (as the title states) distraction. Although this book was published in the '90s, the essays feel timeless. There's the occasional mention of a type writer, but the concepts Friedman writes about aren't really linked to technology. Distraction is distraction, regardless of what form it takes.

While I had plenty of "yes, exactly!" moments while reading, the prose can get a bit winding and perhaps a little too descriptive, as if the writer has gotten lost in her own head and forgotten she has an audience.

My favorite essay was "The Parafin Density of Wax Wings: Writing School," which talks about the author's experience at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. MFA programs were not nearly as prevalent in the 90s as they are now, but even so Friedman hits on some of the issues with them (a false sense of having "made it" for one). She also talks about how wonderful they can be, and I think she captured my ambivalent feelings toward writing workshops quite well.

If you're a hobbyist writer, you can safely skip this book, but if you're a lifer you'll probably find some good meat to chew on here.

[Madly Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is reread of a very old book, one that I've had on my shelf for a long time. I reread it for these sentences. Laughing.

"You may gaze and gaze, but you may be sure that when you begin to write, that gorgeous ineffable volume will not coalesce on the page. Something else will appear. And then you have a choice. You can accept it, and get on with your writing, or you can throw it away, and pine for the painting."

This is the single most important lesson of writing anything. And this is the moment writers choke, even bestselling published ones. Get past this point, and you might finish a good book. You just write on, you revise, and it may take a year to revise or 10 years. No one knows. Writing is so uncertain.

One other thing. I've read lots of books on writing lately and they all pretty much talk about envy. I've never had that problem, and I had almost fell into the trap of thinking it was a recent problem, but Friedman felt it. The other issue with writers, the one that is really the important one is distractions. Life will distract you. Jobs will distract you. FAMILY will distract you. Social media will distract you. Protect your writing and writing time.

[Nathaniel Nemeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book felt like it was written by a spoiled rotten brat with very evil thoughts (demonic even; which is made clear by her many references to tarot cards, séances, etc). The whole book was just her whining about how amazing of a writer she thinks she is and how people should just recognize it.

She also reveals stories of her acting out like an undisciplined and spazmatic child (i.e. spitting in her cousin’s coffee every single time). Along these lines, she also writes many stories that glorify incest and other extremely deviant behavior, as well a particular story where she doesn’t care that her writing triggered someone to commit suicide.

She herself said on the last page of the book, “what is loved reveals its loveliness.” Ironically so, she writes this in the context of no one liking her work, except for herself. This is a classic case of narcissism.

With all of this in mind, she makes Christians and Jews look really bad; especially with her sexually deviant descriptions and justifications, and references to actively participating in demonic activities.

This book should be a hard pass!

[Rebecca Brenner Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

published a couple years before BIRD BY BIRD, Bonnie Friedman’s WRITING PAST DARK serves the same purposes & is arguably better. WRITING PAST DARK is short, a series of 8 essays on topics including envy, distraction, MFA & writers workshops, writing blocks, & myths of success. I especially enjoyed the last chapter, which unpacks the myth of success to make a convincing argument for enjoying the writing process.
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notable quotations — on success: “to love our lives right now—that is the transformative success.” on writer’s block: “when I embraced imperfection, silence dissolved.” so many more.
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And Friedman is Jewish, which is ideal for a reader like me who values the Jewish references & sayings throughout the book, a pleasant surprise contrasting so many Christian-tinged self-help books.
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some key takeaways: focus on the story itself, the work, what you want to say. follow the story, focus on the content that you’re communicating. beware of overly idolizing other authors. success is getting to write. revel in the privilege of being a writer!