Writing for Bliss: A Seven-Step Plan for Telling Your Story and Transforming Your Life
By Diana Raab and Mark Freeman
4.5/5
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About this ebook
Writing for Bliss is most fundamentally about reflection, truth, and freedom. With techniques and prompts for both the seasoned and novice writer, it will lead you to
- tap into your creativity through storytelling and poetry,
- examine how life-changing experiences can inspire writing,
- pursue self-examination and self-discovery through the written word, and,
- understand how published writers have been transformed by writing.
"Part writing guide, part memoir, and part love letter to the craft of writing, Diana Raab's Writing for Bliss is a caring and motivational guide. Raab's love of words and her belief in the power of story shine through. With its hypnotic and personal stories, interviews with other authors, and many useful writing prompts, Writing for Bliss will find a valued spot on the bookshelves of those seeking greater understanding."
--ANGELA WOLTMAN, FOREWORD REVIEWS
Poet and memoirist Raab (Lust) credits her lifelong love of writing and its therapeutic effects with inspiring her to write this thoughtful and detailed primer that targets pretty much anyone interested in writing a memoir. Most compelling here is Raab's willingness to share her intimate stories (e.g., the loss of a relative, ongoing struggles with cancer, a difficult relationship with her mother). Her revelations are encouraging to writers who feel they need "permission to take... a voyage of self-discovery." The book's seven-step plan includes plenty of guidance, including on learning to "read like a writer," and on addressing readers as if "seated across the table ." Raab covers big topics such as the "art and power of storytelling" and small details such as choosing pens and notebooks that you enjoy using.
--PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY
"Writing for Bliss is about the profound ways in which we may be transformed in and through the act of writing. I am grateful to Diana Raab for sharing it, and I trust that you will feel the same as you read on. May you savor the journey."
--from the foreword by MARK FREEMAN, PhD
"By listening to ourselves and being aware of what we are saying and feeling, the true story of our life's past experience is revealed. Diana Raab?s book gives us the insights by which we can achieve this through her life-coaching wisdom and our writing."
--BERNIE SIEGEL, MD, author of The Art of Healing
"Only a talented writer who has fought hard to overcome life?s many obstacles could take her readers by the hand and lead them through the writing process with such enormous compassion, amazing insight, and kindness. Diana Raab is a powerful, wise, intelligent guide well worth our following."
--JAMES BROWN, author of The Los Angeles Diaries and The River
"Writing for Bliss is far more than a 'how-to manual'; it enlightens the creative process with wisdom and a delightful sense of adventure. Bravo to Bliss!"
--LINDA GRAY SEXTON, author of Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton
"Uniquely blending inspiring insights with practical advice, Diana guides you on a path to discover the story that is truly inside you?and yearning to be told."
--PATRICK SWEENEY, coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Succeed on Your Own Terms
DIANA RAAB, PhD, is an award-winning memoirist, poet, blogger, workshop facilitator, thought provoker, and survivor. She?s the
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Reviews for Writing for Bliss
11 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5If you've ever read a book about writing anything before and found it sorely lacking in anything remotely helpful, or found it hard to understand, I want you to forget that experience right now. This book stands mountains above every writing book I've ever read (and I've read quite a few in a quest to find my inner writer)! If you want an author that seems to understand YOU and YOUR insecurities, and nerves, then this is the book for you. Writing for Bliss is all about becoming comfortable with your own voice in written form. It's a book you won't want to pass up!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a helpful book to get me going when I can't jump start my writing.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Author Diana Raab offers advice on writing for spiritual growth and transformation, along with many writing prompts and suggestions for further reading. She also discusses related subjects such as creative visualization, meditation techniques, and the like. There is little that is new here, but if you resonate with this approach, you will probably like the book. If you, like me, prefer something a little less New Agey, you may not. Also, for a book on writing, this could have benefited from some tighter copy editing to make it less redundant and eliminate some (probably unintentionally) misused words.I have not tried any of the writing prompts, but they look promising. This may be a book that you really have to live with to discover its true value.Please note that my LibraryThing Early Reviewers copy has not arrived as of the date of the this review. I obtained this book from another source.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Having reached a certain age I started to think about what do I know about my heritage and especially about my grandparents and the answer was very little. How I wish they had recorded their life story so I could relate it to my children.This is why this book struck a deep cord with me as I started documen ting my life so my grandchildren would know who their grandad was and what he did. The author tells us why and how it is important to tell our story and how moods affect the words and grammar we use and through the book how we can influence and change the script.The main element of the book was when the novelist stated she had kept a diary and memoirs of what her children had done every day of their life and give them it on their wedding days, this made me think and a little bit sad as I really wish I had done this for mine.It is amazing how writing can form a brilliant escape and by moving your thoughts from mind to paper can help release tension and stress which is expertly described in this excellent book alongside with other techniques.The book is full of useful hints and tips on how to write with true meaning in the different formats of prose and this writing typifies our moods or thoughts and gives the reader a true reflection of our sole.I am glad that I started my daily journal to record my own personnel history but this book has inspired me to keep recording my thoughts actions and beliefs and hope one day in the future a historian will find them and use them for research.Reading this book has enhanced and improved my daily records and as the title states made my “Writing For Bliss”.