conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is a description for a book titled The Right to Write about Writing, dates, bucks with the genre: Reference, Writing, Research & Publishing Guides?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Writing, for the author, is neither solely vocation nor avocation: it is a way of life. It comes first thing in the morning, while the horses are waiting to be fed; it happens at the kitchen counter, while the onions are saut&eacute;ing; it takes place on "dates" at caf&eacute; tables shared with likeminded friends; it unfurls in the mind as the '65 pickup "bucks over the rutted dirt roads like a stiff-legged bronco." The more than 40 brief personal essays that make up <I>The Right to Write</I> are an unyielding affirmation of the writing life and a denigration of all that gets in the way: busy schedules, procrastination, insecurity, lack of writing space, a day job--you get the point. the author's commonsense advice is liberating to anyone who has felt hampered by making a big deal out of writing (this "tends to make writing difficult. Keeping writing casual tends to keep it possible"), by not having the time to write ("Get aggressive. Steal time"), or the like. If you find a spirit that compares writing to revelation, prayer, and Zen pursuits, that might just attribute misguided communication to Mercury retrograde simpatico, then you will find much to embrace here. And you will never, never again dream of waiting for that commitment-free sabbatical in the south of France to get your writing project under way. <I>--Jane Steinberg</I>
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the first five paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Right to Write
  We commit, then the Universe commits. We are the cause, the Universe delivers the effect. We act internally and the Universe acts externally. Again this is where so many of us fall into a false sense of powerlessness. "If I were published, then I'd be a real writer," we tell ourselves. "What are the odds of my being published?"
  The universe is not, to my eye, a cruel and capricious place. In other words, for every writer there is a reader—or many readers.
  We had been trudging for some minutes in silence while I thought about how good the Young Writer's odds were and he thought about exactly the opposite. Finally he spoke:
  My afternoon's walk with my friend the Young Writer was turning out to be an afternoon of listening to the most common and persuasive blocks that writers in our culture endure. As we tramped on through the sagebrush, keeping one alert eye out for rattlers, the villainous hisses that sounded were instead those of our culture's beliefs about artists.
  Mark Bryan calls this the "Edgar Allan Poe school of writing: Live in torment and die broke in the gutter." Some people do, but that fact may have more to do with their untreated alcoholism than their writerly ambitions.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Add another sentence about deep-seated, answered, communicated.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Right to Write
  We commit, then the Universe commits. We are the cause, the Universe delivers the effect. We act internally and the Universe acts externally. Again this is where so many of us fall into a false sense of powerlessness. "If I were published, then I'd be a real writer," we tell ourselves. "What are the odds of my being published?"
  The universe is not, to my eye, a cruel and capricious place. I believe that our desire to write is a deep-seated human drive to communicate and that it is answered by an equally powerful human drive to be communicated to. In other words, for every writer there is a reader—or many readers. 
  We had been trudging for some minutes in silence while I thought about how good the Young Writer's odds were and he thought about exactly the opposite. Finally he spoke:
  My afternoon's walk with my friend the Young Writer was turning out to be an afternoon of listening to the most common and persuasive blocks that writers in our culture endure. As we tramped on through the sagebrush, keeping one alert eye out for rattlers, the villainous hisses that sounded were instead those of our culture's beliefs about artists. 
  Mark Bryan calls this the "Edgar Allan Poe school of writing: Live in torment and die broke in the gutter. " Some people do, but that fact may have more to do with their untreated alcoholism than their writerly ambitions.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is five more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Since our mythology would have us believe that artists are by nature wild and careless, why talk here in such fiscal terms? Why urge conservatism? Because we are all inwardly wealthy and we can squander our inner wealth the way a fool squanders a fortune.
  How do we squander our wealth? To begin with, we show our work too soon and too indiscriminately. We undervalue our valuable writing. We do not qualify our readers the way a bank qualifies an investor. We do not stop to question the aspiring reader's qualifications. In our eagerness to be read, we open the city gates. This is like giving passersby access to our checking account.
  Showing our writing to hostile or undiscerning readers is like lending money to people with terrible fiscal pasts. We will not be repaid as we wish. Our work will not be valued. They will respond in dangerous extremes, "brilliant" or "awful." (Long experience teaches that extremes of any kind, high or low, are dangerous to the writing process because they create self-consciousness.) Even if our readers wax enthusiastic, they may do so generically and that, too, is dangerous.
  If we overextend ourselves to them—placing in their hands and before their eyes a vulnerable piece of work—we jeopardize our ability to complete the work itself. Our energy gets overdrawn. Energy that should be used for writing gets used instead trying to defend our writing, trying to decide if our critics are "right."
  Writing is an act of connection, but it connects the writer first to the Self and secondly to the world. In order to practice self-expression we must keep that in the proper order. We must protect the Self we mean to express. We must treat our writing carefully, as if it were valuable. It is valuable.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the last five paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Trying to concentrate on my slice of strawberry pie, I found my stomach twisting in knots. This Great Writer ran a creative writing program. He should have spelled it "pogrom." I winced at the damage his competitive machismo could do to a sensitive young writer.
  I want to let everybody in. I want us all to write. I want us to remember that we used to write. Before phones, we wrote each other letters. We're doing it again with e-mail, and I think it's a balancing of the wheel. We have been going too fast and we know that. Taking the time to write something down grounds us. Taking the time to write how we feel helps us to know how we feel. Taking the time to write to each other, we find ourselves doing more right by each other. Yes, I want a revolution.
  I want us to take back the power into our own hands. I want us to remember we have choices and voices. I want us to right our world, and writing is the tool I feel helps us to do it. We are a restless lot here in the West. We do not take easily to meditation. Writing is an active form of meditation that lets us examine our lives and see where and how we can alter them to make them more sound.
  Yes, writing is an art, but "art" is part of the verb "to be"—as in "Thou art truly human." To be truly human, we all have the right to make art. We all have the right to write.
  Set aside one hour's time. Light a candle, cue up some stirring music, set a sacred atmosphere. You are asked to make a contract with yourself concerning your writing. Contracts should include: