Who Wants To Be A Writer?

The Five-Minute Writer by Margaret Geraghty

Margaret Geraghty has been inspiring students of the written word for over twenty years. She has run writing workshops, written for magazines (Writing Magazine and Writers' News) and authored books detailing techniques on how to characters, dialogues and plots. As if that weren't enough, she also has a degree in psychology which probably comes in handy when discussing the development of characters and their motivations and driving force.

Her book, The Five-Minute Writer, was gifted to me by a family member because it is well known amongst those close to me that I have a keen interest in prose and poetry, both as a fan and intrepid (though, as yet, unpublished) creator. The purpose of the book is to inspire you to write, as simple as that.

Each chapter discusses a writing-related topic - how to describe details and peculiarities, naming characters, and how to find triggers for writing, amongst many other topics - and each chapter ends with an exercise that, as the title of the book suggests, should take five minutes (or so) each. The idea being, I suppose, that it is better to spend at least five minutes a day, rather that no time at all, contemplating and considering one's writing. 

As somebody interested in writing, someone who has hopes of seeing some of his literary pursuits in print some day, I welcome any and all endeavours that may lead to an inspiration to write. And, having said that, I have nothing but praise for Margaret Geraghty's book and am glad I spent time reading it and undertaking the exercises therein. It has lead to my having a file on my laptop that is absolutely full (well, perhaps not absolutely full, but more than enough to be going on with) of ideas for short stories, a novel, poetry, articles etc. And, since the purpose of the book is to inspire, I can only say that, in my opinion, the author has done exactly as she set out to do and done so very well indeed.

I would recommend this book to any and all aspiring writers and, if this book is anything to go by, think it shall probably worth the time to check out other books by the same author ( More Five-Minute Writing and The Novelist's Guide).

Available for purchase here (Disclosure: if you purchase through links in this blog, I may earn a commission, but that does not influence the contents of this blog).