The Writer's Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life

by Priscilla Long

Suitable for both beginning and advanced writers of fiction and nonfiction, The Writer's Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life distills 20 years of teaching and creative thought by the well-published author Priscilla Long. The Writer's Portable Mentor helps writers understand and incorporate the regular practices of virtuoso creators; provides a guide to structuring literary, journalistic, or fictional pieces or entire books; opens the door to the sentence strategies of the masters; provides tools for developing a poet's ear for use in prose; trains writers in the observation skills of visual artists; and guides them toward more effective approaches to getting their work into the world. Says Maya Sonenberg, Director of the Creative Writing Program at University of Washington, "I have never seen anything quite like Priscilla Long's book. It presents a true alternative for the advanced writer."

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Reference, Crafts, Self Help, Research, School

349 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2010

About the author

Priscilla Long is author of The Writer’s Portable Mentor (University of New Mexico Press), Cartographies of Home: Poems (MoonPath), Dancing with the Muse in Old Age (Coffeetown), Holy Magic: Poems (MoonPath) Minding the Muse: A Handbook for Painters, Composers, Writers, and Other Creators (Coffeetown), a book of essays titled Fire and Stone: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (University of Georgia Press), Crossing Over: Poems (University of New Mexico Press), and Where the Sun Never Shines: A History of America’s Bloody Coal Industry (Paragon House).

Priscilla is a Seattle-based writer of poetry, essays, creative nonfictions, fictions, science, and history. Her awards include a National Magazine Award. Her rigorous and extremely popular classes are always full for the good reason that her writers routinely become more skilled and get more published. Her scholarly history book is Where the Sun Never Shines: A History of America's Bloody Coal Industry (Paragon House). Author's website: www.PriscillaLong.com. Photo by Anne Herman

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I get the same rush of hands-rubbing-together glee buying a new writing guide as I do a new cookbook (well, almost - if only writing guides had drool-inducing photographs of Truffled Saint-Marcellin or Bucatini all'Amatriciana or Salted Caramel (fill in the blank with anything).

An unread book on the craft of writing is full of possibility, of secrets waiting for revelation, of motivation and inspiration. It may contain the one thing I need to know that will turn my writing life around, the checklist I can follow that will make me a real writer, the advice that will level the uphill road and ensure a rejection letter will never again be addressed in my general direction.

Okay, I'm not that naive optimistic. Still, cracking open a famous author's literary toolbox and peering inside seems so hopeful and busy, like I'm thinking super hard about writing. When what I should be doing is, well, writing .

And about that famous author bit....have you ever heard of Priscilla Long? I sure hadn't, until I heard her speak at the Chuckanut Writers Conference in Bellingham this past June. She had me at, something - I've forgotten what it was she said - but I adored her. Modest, quiet, funny, pragmatic. And a ridiculously accomplished writer who works. Hard. Every day.

Enough of the preamble, the backstory, the poorly developed characters. Let me get right to the point:

You must read this.

Poring over the opening pages of this book coincided with writing the opening pages of my novel. Only a few weeks ago now, but I can't quite remember which came first. I finally gave in to the one thing that every author of a writing guide writes in their opening pages: You must write every day. Yeah, I know. I know. But look, I have a day job - writing every day isn't feasible. I already get up at the crack of dawn, earlier. I'm exhausted by the time I get home in the evenings. When am I supposed to do this writing? When do I get to work on what I want to work on, if I'm having to submit to the drudgery of a 15-20 minute free write, every day?

Excuses. That Priscilla Long finally gave me the courage to stop making. And it was so easy. Now I feel I have no other choice. And I'm thinking that if you aren't heeding Priscilla's advice by page 20, you should just stop reading this book until you can. The only thing that makes a writer a writer is writing. Every Day.

Thanks to my consistent daily free writing by hand, I have pages of scenes, character notes, setting sketches. Every day of scribbling brings me closer to my story, my characters, their motivations. I create and cover plot holes, I've literally sketched a bare bones layout of a stone cottage. I transcribe these daily writings into my Work In Progress on the computer and doing so leads to other scenes, ideas, characters.

And that, all from reading Chapter One.

The Writer's Portable Mentor is to a writer - of any level of experience and ambition - as much a toolbox as one of those gazillion-piece Craftsman tool sets is to an automotive repair pro. And Priscilla makes you work - there are no hypotheticals here. You take your writing, you take work of authors you admire, and you examine them and rework them, learning every step of the way.

I now keep a Lexicon notebook (right, so it was an excuse to buy what comes third in my bookstore thrill-seeking - after cookbooks and writing guides: Moleskine notebooks). But I have a growing collection of lovely, evocative, provocative, delicious words and sayings that I will find a way to use or to be inspired by: phrases such as back-lit light of polished steel (poet Mary Oliver), marzipan moon (author Hilary Mantel), as tender as an extension cord Pete Wells, restaurant critic, The New York Times; words like borage, palavering, sump, scialytic. It scares me to think of all the gorgeous words and phrases I've forgotten after forty years of reading!

I have several stories cooling in a drawer. I've chastised myself for not making the time or creating the courage to rework my pieces, research markets and submit them. Turns out I was wise to leave them sit, letting my thoughts sift, before returning to them with fresh, more critical eyes.

With Long's guidance on structure, openings, sentences, paragraphs, punctuation, word choice, revision, I'm tearing these stories apart and reassembling. And I will submit, resubmit - even those previously published - where possible. Long is very keen that you get your work out there - the creative process is not complete until you have attempted to share it with the world.

I will 'fess up: I did not do all the exercises. I did not comb through books I admire and craft my own sentences and paragraphs based on their models. I'm in too much of a groove with my writing and I don't want to slow the momentum. You can't be dogmatic about these things, any more than you can cook every single recipe in a cookbook and blog about it, then write a bestseller that will become a major motion picture starring Meryl Streep, now can you? Oh, wait...

This isn't the be all and end all of writing guides - there are so many astonishing and revelatory works to discover and reread - several that are on my list to explore for the first time, many others I return to for inspiration and practical advice. But if asked to make a Desert Island decision- if I could take only one book - my choice would be clear:

I'd take my writing-practice notebook. And a pen. Thanks, Priscilla.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did every single exercise in the book, taking notes about how to apply what I learned to my teaching, and murmuring with joy at all the new twists I found on ideas and techniques that I've tried in many ways to share with my students. Though I do not agree with everything Priscilla Long says, I must assert (and I do not say this lightly): this is the best writing craft book I have ever read. Thank you, thank you, for sharing this life-work, Priscilla Long.

[Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could get one book and only one book to help me improve as a writer, it would be The Writer's Portable Mentor. I'm a fan of writing books that have me work with my own writing. Using this book, I have developed an ear for sound, a nose for (my) flabby sentences, an awareness of sentence structure, a styem for developing vocabulary to fit a piece, and a real love of metaphors that deepen the work, not distract. The exercises in this book are as helpful the twentieth time as they are the first, because the recommendation is to always work from works-in-progress. There are no abstract exercises. The WPM is relevant to whatever project I am working on be it fiction or creative non-fiction. Equally important, t's a pleasure to read as Long takes care to explain clearly and to use stunning examples from some of the best writers to hold a pen.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far I have given this as a gift five times and my friends are all sick of hearing about it.
This is material I review over and over. The book is packed this book with everything from lessons on productivity, grammar discussions, lessons on diction and syntax, and something I haven't seen in many books: instructions on how to observe the world and turn what we experience into words. Unlike many books which simply address craft elements from the author’s perspective, she addresses the topic of reading, urging us all to become closer readers and learn from the masters. She covers topics like the "virtuoso sentence" and discusses how to study the work of writers we admire. Instead of explaining what sells, she urges us to strive for greatness.
The book is practical, she encourages us to use current work, and revise that rather than churn out orphan paragraphs based on arbitrary exercises. To create new work, she offers examples of ways to start new projects, like listing topic sentences or collecting information for a collage essay. With this book I was finally getting a glimpse in to the world of a professional writer. I felt so much hope for my future as I read this book.
After she covered the different types of sentences my brain ached-in a good way, like after a long run. She then covered four types of paragraphs. At the end of the section on paragraphs there is an exercise that asks you to make a list of ten sentences, the topics for your ten paragraphs, and poof- there's a 1,000 word piece.
A blurb on the back of the book states that The Writer’s Portable Mentor was a culmination of over twenty years worth of teaching experience. The book is a collection of material she uses in her classes and just now collected for publication. I can't recommend this book highly enough-it is something new- while being wonderfully instructive- it is also inspiring.

[Charlie Holmberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book for anyone revising a novel or writing an essay, especially where prose comes in. The book covers basic structure and selling points, but it's value is in its guide to prose--using metaphor, sounds, imagery to really make your writing better. It really helped me where I was struggling, and even after reading it through, I read it again, because there's so much useful information in there. Long includes a lot of great exercises to strengthen writing as well. I definitely recommend this book!

[Nathanael Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

Evidence for the five stars:
- I just finished my third full read of this book
- I have and continue to use this as a required reading in my writing classes
- students tell me that they keep this book and will NOT be returning it for credit to the college bookstore (that's incredible praise right there)
- I flip through when the semester ends and do and redo and redo the exercises Long offers
- I've gifted this book to friends

Look. This book is full of solid, honest, clear-eyed advice and applicable exercises and information for every writer. Get it.

[Lela · Rating 5 out of 5]

The short review:WOW!!!!

[Jennifer Louden]

One of the best books on writing. It is the one I refer back to the most often, as a writer and mentor.

[Margaret Perkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, I'll be coming back to read this dozens of times.
This book helped restart my writing. It's full of practical exercises that really will make your writing better. I learned things about structure and syntax that made me excited to try new forms. Utterly practical, utterly inspiring and supportive, stuffed with gorgeous sentences from beautiful writers. I'm rambling. But I just love this book and everything it will keep teaching me as I come back to it again and again and again.

[Joshunda Sanders · Rating 3 out of 5]

I made myself finish this last night because I couldn't fathom having a book on my currently-reading list that dated back to February.

There is some really great advice here.

It is an intense little book, though.

If you want to do independent clause/preposition/paragraph work, it's is awesome. There is even advice about transitions, revisions, putting your work out in to the world -- all really great.

Not only does Priscilla Long explain how one becomes a virtuoso writer (perpetually debatable) but she provides great examples of excellent writing so you can see what she means.

Here's a warning, though. If I were to do all the exercises in this book, as I first attempted back in February, I'm certain there would be a clear difference in my writing. She encourages you to read then pause and actually work through what she said and there are like three or four prompts after each. Whew! I had no time for that.

Here's another warning, to go with that. Some of her suggestions will work for somebody, they just don't work for me -- there's advice, for instance, to keep a book of vocabulary words to look up and use in a sentence and...well, I read so much because I value it and it builds my vocabulary, and the easiest thing for me is to write a word I don't know on a post-it note and then move on. (Maybe I have too many notebooks and that's something I need to work on, too.) Anyway, I recommend this for a writer who doesn't have time to take a class but wants the writing equivalent of a boot-camp instructor. Your writing and your readers will thank you.

[David Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used portions of this book when teaching an introductory non-fiction writing course. I found many of the chapters a useful resource for students with specific writing issues. Particularly Part II--"Finding a Structure" or Part III--"The Art of the Sentence" provided instruction and examples that actually helped students to see in practical ways how they could move their sentences and structure to something better.

Some of the chapters--for instance, "Passive Voice--need to be longer (adding more examples, prompts, and exercises) if this book were to be considered "comprehensive." The author writes in engaging prose and has clearly thought about and is experienced at the "harder than it looks" skill-set known as "teaching writing." This tome rates as one of the better "how to" books of this genre for active students of writing.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book for me in the sense that I have been looking to improve my grammar and use of language in my writing. I've only just finished it and I already feel like I am carrying something with me into my writing.
One thing I kept getting hung up on however was the author's references to "first-rate writers" which gave off a feeling like these were super-human beings or something. That part made me feel just a little intimidated on occasion, although I think the author was trying to inspire the reader to aspire. Instead, it just made me feel like there was a lofty clique that I had very little hope of being accepted in.
If you can brace yourself for this buffeting of your insecurities, however, you will get a lot from this book that very few other books on writing have to offer.

[Sonya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Priscilla Long has been my mentor for the last six years. Without her input on discipline, grammar, sentences—all the ways she encourages virtuoso writing in her classes, and her book, The Writer’s Portable Mentor—I couldn’t have done the hard work to write a memoir that's being published next year. I teach writers of personal essays in my home, at Hugo House, and for The Red Badge Project, a writing program for soldiers. Priscilla's book is as instrumental as a journal for my students. It defines mastery, and then leads us into that territory with clear, solid practices. This has proven more useful than most writing workshops I've attended. Buy this book. Use it for a year. Your work will become virtuoso too.

[Kelly]

I'm on page 51 of 360 of The Writer's Portable Men...: I didn't get into Long's class at Hugo House. I was crushed, because I'd made such a particular point of being at what I thought was the front of the line; I called at the stroke of noon. Alas, several hours earlier, more than a dozen others lined up outside the Hugo House doors. I am 4th on the waiting list. I'm consoling myself w/ this book. Thank goodness she wrote it.

[Robin Meadows · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite writing book ever. Priscilla Long covers brainstorming to stretch your ideas; choosing words that combine precision with beauty; building sentences, paragraphs and overall structures that propel your stories; and more. And she gives examples of all this as well as practical tips on how to do it yourself. She makes me think about my writing and how to enjoy the process more than any other writing teacher - I would love to take a class from her.

[Dori Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended! especially for writers looking to write in a lovely, literary style.

Priscilla Long carefully crafted this book based on years of teaching writers and seeing what works best. It is filled with specifics and exercises and wonderful detail, as well as encouragement.

Every writer should read this book.

[Alison Quigley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rest assured that if you’re a writer wanting ways to improve your sentences then this intelligent and energising book is for you. Upon finishing, I dashed off to grab notebooks to start on the journey of keeping lexicons and to capture musings. Wish I’d found this book earlier!

[Cathy Patton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This had a number of good tips and gave me a lot to think about, but I actually didn't enjoy the author's writing style! So I will take her specific advice with a grain of salt. Still, her tips will help me look at books I do enjoy and figure out what I would like to emulate.

[Demetri Papadimitropoulos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every writer’s shelf eventually sags under the weight of books promising to unlock the secret of good prose. Some are inspirational, some are prescriptive, some are sentimental about “the writing life.” What is striking about Priscilla Long’s "The Writer’s Portable Mentor" is how little patience it has for vague encouragement. This is a book that believes in sentences, paragraphs, time on task and an almost athletic conception of practice. It does not so much cheer you on as hand you a stack of weights and show you, calmly and precisely, how to lift.

Long’s premise is simple and bracing: writing is an art, and therefore it must be practiced the way musicians practice scales and painters fill sketchbooks. The first surprise for many readers will be that she begins not with plot or “finding your voice,” but with a physical object – the writer’s notebook. She wants you to have a place where sentences, overheard speech, fragments of description, questions, lists and attempts can accumulate. The notebook in her vision is not a diary of feelings but a laboratory bench. It is where you copy other writers’ sentences, where you work with new words, where you try a paragraph ten ways to see which way holds.

From there the book moves methodically outward. Early chapters attend to the smallest units of craft – the individual sentence, the lexicon you carry, the habit of reading like a writer – and then build toward larger structures: paragraphs, scenes, transitions, forms of narrative and essay, revision, publication, the management of envy and fatigue. The effect is architectural. You are never simply told to “write better”; you are shown how better prose is built, mortar line by mortar line.

One of Long’s great strengths is her insistence that sentences are not neutral conduits for an already formed thought; they are the very medium in which thought takes shape. She offers a taxonomy of sentence types and makes an argument for learning to write each of them on purpose. Loose sentences, periodic sentences, sentences that open on a subordinate clause and then swing into their main assertion, sentences that pivot midstream or gather power through repetition – these are not terms she leaves to rhetoricians. She asks the working writer to adopt them as tools. Her recommended method is concrete: take a sentence you admire, copy its syntactic skeleton and pour your own material into the form. She is careful to distinguish this from plagiarism. The words are yours; what you are borrowing is structure, like a dancer learning a step.

The same rigor applies to the lexicon. Long proposes that writers systematically collect new words, particularly strong verbs and precise nouns, and log them in lists that are revisited and refreshed. This is not, in her telling, a matter of sounding clever. It is a moral preference for accurate language over the vague and habitual. A character does not simply “go” but trudges, strides, sidles, shuffles; a room does not merely “look nice” but gleams, droops, clutters, reeks. Again, she does not leave the reader in abstraction. There are timed exercises: fill a page with verbs of movement, with names for kinds of light, with ways to evoke heat without using the word hot. Over time, this work enlarges the pool of words that come to hand in a draft. The ambition is that when you reach for an image to carry an emotion, you are not forced to borrow worn metaphors; you will have more exact materials.

If this sounds severe, it is worth saying that the book is also companionable and often encouraging. Long’s tone is that of a teacher who has endured every student doubt. She knows about the terror of the blank page and the shame of rereading an early draft. Her solution is not to argue with those feelings but to route around them with method. You are blocked? Set a timer for fifteen minutes and write without stopping, she says. You do not know what to write? Copy a paragraph by a writer you admire, then write your own paragraph on a different subject following the same pattern of moves. You are afraid the work is trivial? Make a list of one hundred questions about your life and the world; circle the ten that feel most charged, and let them guide you toward subjects with weight.

One of the book’s most valuable sections takes up structure. Long is attentive to the shapes that underlie stories, essays and even lyric pieces. She describes, with examples, forms such as the braided essay, the narrative segmented into small titled blocks, the profile that proceeds through scenes rather than expository summary, the story that moves by circling an obsession instead of marching chronologically. Her treatment is practical rather than theoretical. You are urged to find a work you admire, diagram its moves and then build your own piece on that armature. To a reader raised on the idea that form should spring fully formed from inspiration, this may sound mechanical. In practice, it is liberating. Once you realize that a four-part essay can be built around four passes through the same place at different times in your life, or that an argument can be interwoven with a story and a bit of research, you are no longer at the mercy of formless pages.

Later chapters delve into metaphor and simile, punctuation, and the subtle art of transitions. Long treats metaphor as a way of thinking rather than a sprinkle of decoration. She catalogs syntactic frames that can carry figurative language – the “as if” clause, the appositive, the bare equation of “X is Y” – and then shows you how to practice them. You take an abstraction that matters to your piece, she suggests, and spend ten minutes generating metaphors for it using a single pattern. Most of what you produce will be unusable. But sometimes, on page three of such a notebook session, a line emerges that reframes your material. A bleak sentence about failure becomes, almost against your will, something sharper: failure as a house you keep moving back into, failure as a dim but familiar bar where you know the bartender’s name. The discipline here is not primarily about ornament. It is about forcing the mind to see again.

Her chapter on punctuation, particularly on colons, dashes and phrasal adjectives, will please those who like their craft advice granular. Long does not treat the comma splice as a sin against grammar but as a choice of rhythm with a cost. She explains why “small business owner” needs a hyphen if you mean a proprietor of a small business rather than a miniature capitalist, and how a colon at the end of a sentence can make what follows feel like an arrival. This is the point at which some readers may feel the line between necessary craft and fussy preference blurring. Yet even here the emphasis is on flexibility. Learn the rules, she says, so that when you break them, you can do so to a purpose.

What distinguishes "The Writer’s Portable Mentor" from many writing manuals is that it does not stop at the workshop door. The closing third of the book addresses the life around the desk: finding peers, getting and giving critique, sending work out, enduring rejection, defining productivity, thinking sanely about success. Long is clear eyed about the culture’s indifference to serious writing. Your family may love you and still wish you would write something more obviously lucrative. Your colleagues may be baffled by your devotion to a form that brings in little money. In that climate, she argues, other writers are not luxuries. They are necessary allies. She urges the formation of small, serious groups, but she is also unsparing about the damage that a poorly run workshop can do. Vague praise helps no one. Cruelty, presented as honesty, can shut down a project for years. The reader is offered a set of concrete guidelines: how to speak to work in progress, how to read for structure and not just for sentences, how to be kind without being mushy.

On publication, Long is neither starry eyed nor cynical. She describes the process of sending out stories and essays as part of the creative cycle, not an optional afterthought. A piece is not finished, in her view, until it has been prepared for strangers’ eyes. She shares small, bracing anecdotes about work she was sure would be rejected and that found homes quickly, and about work she had to send out dozens of times. She is candid about the slow, sometimes humiliating nature of the process. Yet she insists that even rejection can be an ally if it sends you back to the page with questions: is the beginning as strong as it could be, have you brought all the insight you can, have you chosen the right form.

The end of the book is devoted to productivity and to what she calls success. Here Long’s tone shifts slightly, becoming more philosophical. She invokes studies suggesting that high level creators in many fields have simply made more things than their peers – more failed paintings, more abandoned symphonies, more stories in the drawer. Her answer is to advocate for systems that quietly pull you forward: a daily or near daily writing practice, a “list of works” that tracks everything you have drafted (published or not), periodic bursts of deliberately excessive output (one poem a day for a month, a story every week). She wants you to see yourself as someone building a body of work across a lifetime, not as an applicant filing a single, all important manuscript with a jury.

Success, in her account, is double. There is worldly success: publication, prizes, readers, money. And there is artistic success: the knowledge, private and exacting, that a given piece has reached the standard you hold for it. Long is wary of the way external validation can distort the work. Early acclaim can paralyze as much as encourage. Invitations and honors can consume the time needed to make the next piece. In the most affecting pages of the book, she argues that the only reliable anchor is the regular return to the blank page, the quiet of a fresh notebook, the next sentence. Whatever the world happens to be saying, the work remains the work.

For all its strengths, "The Writer’s Portable Mentor" is not without limitations. Its sensibility is unmistakably literary, oriented toward short stories, personal essays, poems and what we might call literary nonfiction. Writers whose ambitions lie primarily in genre fiction, self help, screenwriting or other commercial forms will still find much to use here – sentences are sentences everywhere – but may have to translate some of the examples. The models Long quotes lean heavily toward twentieth century American and European work, with less representation from more contemporary or global voices than a reader might wish. The book’s disciplined approach to imitation and practice will thrill those who like to be told exactly what exercises to do and in what order; it may, at least initially, overwhelm those who have been nourished mostly on more conversational guides such as "On Writing" or "Bird by Bird." There are moments when the sheer volume of assignments can make the enterprise of becoming a writer feel like joining a monastic order devoted to the semicolon.

Yet even these caveats testify to the book’s seriousness. Long is not selling romance. She is not promising that if you simply “open to your creativity” you will write well. She assumes that you are willing to do what pianists, dancers and scientists do: practice, study, fail, try again. In that sense, her book is oddly consoling. The standards it sets are high, but the path it traces is clear. You do not have to be a genius. You have to show up, pay attention, read deeply, and work.

On my own private scale, I would give "The Writer’s Portable Mentor" a 91 out of 100. It is dense, demanding and at times austere, but it is also one of the few books on writing that feels as if it could, over years, actually change a writer’s practice rather than merely their mood. It belongs on the short shelf of craft books that ask to be used rather than admired. Its true subject is not just how to make a better paragraph; it is how to inhabit, with patience and a measure of joy, the long, uncertain, sentence by sentence work of learning to write.

[William Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Priscilla Long’s book gets down to the nuts and bolts of writing, the brass tacks, the irreducible, atomic elements of the craft. You can read books all day on how to write scenes, develop character, and manage pacing, and those books are essential for beginners, but where writers often get bogged down is in neglect of the basics.

What are these basics? Chapter 2 is about using words better. It covers topics like Where to Find Good Words, collecting words, creating your own lexicon, sound effects, verb work. The exercises at the end of the chapter, like those in every chapter, are original, useful, and genuinely productive. For example, Take a page of a piece you’ve written. Circle all the verbs. Question each one. Change at least one. The result can be revelatory.

The chapter on observation is likewise an eye-opener, if only because it reminds the writer to rely on observation rather than abstraction. What is anger on someone’s face? Anyone can come up with a set of words, probably involving flushed cheeks, dilated pupils, flared nostrils; the usual stuff. Long encourages us to actually observe the face of someone who is angry. You’ll probably see few of the cliché pseudo-observations listed above, and instead you’ll have an original, compelling description based on what you do see. The same is true for observing gestures, voices, and colors. Simple advice, but stunning when you take it.

The longish middle section on “Finding a Structure” was a stretch of molasses for me. Granted, you can’t (or shouldn’t) just write into the void without direction or form. But I thought Long’s overly-detailed, lengthy examples belabored the obvious, were uninteresting, and not well-written. In most cases, her narrative explication of the example amounted to little more than restating excerpts from that example, which explicates nothing. So the center of the book is weak and saggy, in my view.

However, the pace picks up again toward the end with excellent chapters on grammar and punctuation; and these are not just lists of rules, but reminders of the possibilities. Many of us, without thinking about it, write in whatever syntax we’re familiar with. A wider syntactical scope can enliven one's writing.

There’s a tantalizing short chapter on metaphor and simile. It reviews basic definitions and provides examples, but it is tantalizing because it offers little analysis or advice. Aristotle said use of metaphor could not be taught, and maybe he was right. Long provides no exercises for this chapter.

The chapter on revision reframes what that task is. Instead of dreading the process, I now look forward to it with excitement. The problem with revision is usually that you don’t know what to do about it. Sure, you can always find errors and improve your verb choices, but with Long’s checklist, you can visualize ramping the piece up to a new level of quality.

The final section, on how to get your work critiqued and ultimately published seems addressed to a beginning writer rather to the more experienced audience presumed so far. It’s a short, harmless chapter, but not a strong ending to an otherwise earth-moving book.

[Lauren Rhoades · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found picked this book up because it was mentioned by a writing podcast that I listen to. The book was straightforward and useful. Priscilla Long is as practical as Natalie Goldberg is whimsical. Fill your notebooks with free writing galore, says Long, but DO something with that free writing. Turn it into a finished product. As a writer who aims to be published, I appreciated that message.

I was most interested in the section "Writing into a Structure," in which Long explores various writing structures, including Theme, Collage, Braided, and Dramatic Story. This chapter should be expanded into a book of its own. Structure and form is something I had not thought deeply about before starting my MFA, but now I'm obsessed. Long emphasizes matching the piece's form with its content, and she gives great examples. (The examples are great throughout the book, too.)

I was admittedly reluctant to read the sections which deal with sentence craft, because, well, I know grammar. But these sections were surprisingly useful. I did not do the exercises in each chapter, but I will return to them as needed, especially because many of them are focused on revising one's existing work.

Overall, this is a craft book I will keep on my shelf for years to come.

[Ivy Digest · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I knew about this book a decade ago so I could be a much improved writer by now.

This master writer understands and strengthens the foundations of good writing and crumbles your writing blocks with prompts and excerpts to illustrate each technique. She explains why something works, unlike most writing teachers who just prescribe a formula or share their experience.

For intermediate writers who want to stand out, if you follow her teaching, your words will sparkle.

I am so impressed with Priscilla’s effectivity that I bought the 2018 expanded edition with new writing samples. This is a favorite that I will refer to repeatedly. She is truly a mentor.

@IvyDigest

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[Sumit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite possibly the best book on writing I've ever read. Compared to the many dry, list and rule-oriented guides I've worked my way through in the past, this book is an absolute delight to read and learn from. The title is apt - it often does feel like the author is a "mentor," gently guiding and encouraging you to develop your writing practice and expand your craft. I also deeply appreciate that the author draws examples from a vast array of sources rather than only her own work (or worse yet, contrived examples). I'd say this book is a must-have for anyone serious about the business of writing.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book and thought Priscilla Long explains concepts in a clear and humorous way. I appreciated how the chapters were broken down, both focusing on the structure of writing (topic sentences, fragment sentences, phrases etc.) but also included best practices of writing (write everyday even if it's only a little). I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in writing or understanding how writers are able to capture humanity.

[Sylvia Hayashi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yesterday sitting in a steaming hot bath, reading “The Writer’s Portable Mentor.” Long introducing the concept of structure, how, without structure, one might wander aimlessly for years.

I wandered for years, but I am not so sure it was aimless. I think maybe it was wandering I needed to do, to get to the place I am now.

I think of the character Nakata in “Kafka on the Shore” being driven around Takamatsu – seemingly aimlessly “I will feel when we are there.”

[Neil Mathison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a writer. I don't begine writing without the Portable Mentor withing arm's reach. Priscilla Long breaks down the process of writing to the basics: collecting the writer's thoughts, identifying a form to write into, and about all, the mastery of a sentence. I would not be without this book. I bring it with me everywhere.

[Diane DeMasi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Priscilla provides a fabulous resource for writers.

The book provides actionable tips for writers who are trying to improve their writing. It's well laid out, the tips are great when I'm revising, I can go to a section and see where I want to improve my sentence structure, or my word choice, or description.

Handy resource for all writers, I highly recommend it.

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best writing craft books. I would have given it five stars but the essays she used as models are much longer than most essays published today. Given that this is a recent update and she went to the trouble to update all of her examples, this is disappointing.

[Elizabeth Turnage · Rating 5 out of 5]

I took sweet time going through this book and enjoyed every minute of it. Priscilla Longbos a great writing teacher (don’t judge her by my writing of this review 😉). I will return to this book again and again to practice new techniques and try to learn new ones.

[Britney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best craft books I've read. There're so many useful practices outlined to encourage writers to make their craft a daily priority. I have my copy of this book all tabbed up, and I believe I'll be returning to it quite often in the future.