I have really been enjoying this book. It's about how to do creative things, especially writing. I know that the answer is to stop reading self-help books and start doing creative things, but I am addicted. Plus, for some reason I haven't taken a creative writing class since, well, possibly ever, so the basic advice in this book really helped me. An excerpt:

"We notice that when people tell the story of their lives it often sounds like an obituary -- a lot of general information but almost no images. We notice also that journal writing has a rather similar quality to it, only instead of information we find a lot of writing about our feelings. The main feeling is discontent and worry, outrage, regret, despair, complaints, vague questions about life, hope of a transformation...we find a lot of writing, but almost no images!"

Whoah. I mean, duh. I mean, umm...I guess this is kind of obvious but I have never really thought about it before. Barry's main suggestion is to just write, using very simple words as prompts. I was previously aware of the idea of writing prompts, but mostly things like "what i did on my summer vacation," which tend to produce dry results like those mentioned above. So, I have been really found this book helpful and interesting, not to mention that it is full of fun cartoons and pictures and a magic cephalopod.

On the other hand, I felt that the book could have been a lot more compact. There were a lot of extra collages that were fine but didn't really do much for me except make me wonder if I had to read them all instead of skipping to the end. Also, I haven't quite finished the book yet, but so far all the writing advice applies to writing about things you have experienced. I'm hoping there's going to be something about developing fiction eventually, but I'm not sure there is.