Write Time: Guide to the Creative Process, from Vision through Revision-and Beyond

REVISED & UPDATED

In this foundational guide to the writer’s mind and productivity used by thousands of writers worldwide since its original publication...called by the New York Times "the best...book on writing," Dr. Atchity shows how the detailed steps of the creative process interface with the writer’s greatest asset, time, to provide both creative success and peace of mind.

Book of the Month Club; Writers Digest Book Club

PRAISE FOR WRITE TIME:

Kenneth Atchity does a considerable service…by demystifying the writing process. He emphasizes writing as a craft, one that can be learned—and must be—by practice. And at the very beginning of this book, he says plainly: “Discipline is the key to all that follows, the bedrock of productive writing. Talent is not a rare commodity. Discipline is.” Amen and amen, Brother Atchity. It’s just the sort of sermon that should be preached to those who wait for inspiration… That’s what it takes—consistency, routine, a rhythm—and the discipline to maintain them. This is not just a message to the neophytes, but one from which experienced writers might benefit, too.. Atchity has written the kind of book that can be of help to just about everyone who writes—or would like to.—Bruce Cook, THE DAILY NEWS

Books about how to write or how to sell what you write are plentiful, and plenty dull. Atchity's book is an exception. Of all the "how-to's" I've read on the subject, this is by far the best. It is frankly written, with a good dose of healthy pessimism. The Author's Foreword is particularly stimulating, and speaks unabashedly about the writer's vision...Ken Atchity's book comes out of a lifetime of working at writing: thus, what he has to tell us is rooted in his experience rather than in meaningless theorizing...For those struggling to make it as writers, regardless of age, this book comes highly recommended.--Ron Nowicki, SAN FRANCISCO REVIEW OF BOOKS

..."Write Time" offers sprinklings of common wisdom and a game plan for getting a book written. Kenneth Atchityadvises the writer that discipline--not the muse--turns out pages; that positive thinking rather than nay-saying nurtures discipline and the muse; that the more one knows about oneself, the more productive one will be...that there is always time if one can only learn to manage it. --Joanna Leedom-Ackerman LOS ANGELES TIMES

This handbook for both beginning and professional writers.. combines unconventional notions of time management and commonsense organizational principles to help writers activate the creative process, transform anxiety into "productive elation," separate the vision of a project from the revision, and set up a manageable writing agenda... also gives tips on preparing for publication and maintaining equilibrium in the face of rejection.--Georgetown Magazine

...There's much good sense in this attempt to help writers use time to better purpose...Useful, particularly to neophytes.--KIRKUS REVIEWS

...Kenneth Atchity's "Write Time" is crammed with the sort of useful advice that it seems to take some people years to learn. "Don't forget," Professor Atchity writes in a chapter on the subject of "foreshadowing" in novels and plays, "the the audience doesn't want to be surprised any more than you do. It wants to know, in advance, that it's going to be surprised so it can worry itself to that point, imagining."l...Best of all, Professor Atchity...has a profound and complex vision to convey on the role of time in any serious writer's life. It is best summed up by the following statements: "From the beginning, writers have been accused of justifying their art as the search for immortality. But no writer I know would feel for an instant that being remembered after one's death is adequate compensation for dying, much less efficient motivation for the willful madness of artistic discipline. The immortality associated with writing lies in the writer's daily visit to an internal eternity."--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt