I would go as far as I could and hit a wall,” said musician and memoirist Patti Smith. In response, playwright Sam Shepard advised, When you hit a wall, just kick it in.” Writing teacher Barbara Abercrombie’s powerful writing prompts give us just the push we need to do it. Like a workout with a top trainer, her exercises warm up, stretch, and build creative muscle.
Kicking In the Wall includes quotes from famous writers to accompany the exercises, as well as real-world examples of completed exercises by the author’s students in the UCLA Extension Writer’s Program. Though Abercrombie says readers need only commit to five minutes per exercise, she writes, I’ve seen novels, memoirs, and many essays get started in those five minutes, and a lot ended up being published.” Her playful method is essential fuel for writers trying to get off the starting block, persevere through challenges, and cross their personal creativity finish lines.
This book has kept me writing! I’m a beginning writer and found that this book, along with Barbara’s “Year ofWriting Dangerously” has kept me moving. A five minute writing exercise isvery doable, instead of not writing for 30 minutes. She is a great teacherand lovingly, humorously, and challengingly keeps one moving. Thank you so much,Barbara
Kicking in the Wall Kicking in the Wall is a fun guide to help you get creative with your writing. The writing prompts in it are only aimed to have you write for five minutes at a time. Of course, you could write for much longer if you are inspired to do so. Even better though, if you can’t get anything going on that prompt, well it was only five minutes wasted, so no big deal.I also like how the book is setup to first show you the writing prompts and then to see examples of what people wrote on some…