Thunder And Lightning
Natalie Goldberg
On this sequel to her perennial bestseller Writing Down the Bones (nearly one million copies in print), Natalie Goldberg gives writers a map for taking their best ideas and inspirations – their thunder and lightning – and turning them into finished stories, essays, and novels, ready for publication. The challenge we face as writers, Goldberg says, begins with the process of turning inward and then trying to communicate what we find.
From the the secret of letting characters and stories “write themselves” – to finding mentor sources and responding to criticism – to writing’s one essential ingredient: the mind – here are all-new Zen-based lessons and reflections, refined and proven over the past decade at Natalie’s acclaimed national writer’s workshops.
Zen Howl
Natalie Goldberg
“Zen howl is the sound of our masks falling away,” teaches Natalie Goldberg. When the masks we hide behind wither and die, there is immediate intimacy between ourselves and the world. This hint of intimacy – of touching something out of reach – is what ignites our longing to write and our desire to practice meditation. On Zen Howl, the bestselling author of Writing Down the Bones (published in eight languages and more than 1,000,000 sold) joins Zen teacher Dosho Port to explore the natural (and sometimes unnatural) connections between writing and Zen. You are invited to join Natalie Goldberg and Dosho Port to examine:
- Resistance – using it to your advantage instead of letting it stop you
- Clear intention, steadfastness, joy, and rest – four structures of Zen that can be assimilated into your writing practice
- How to recognize “first thoughts” and gain the courage to express them, and much more
Rich with teachings and exercises gathered by these two insightful teachers over the past 25 years, Zen Howl will show you how to drop your mask and witness in even the briefest moments of your life, a whole world waiting to be expressed.
The Writing Life
Natalie Goldberg and Julia Cameron
On The Writing Life, bestselling authors Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg come together for the first time to explode cherished misconceptions about who should write, and why they should do it. Join these two legends of the writer’s craft as they open the door to the writer’s world for everybody – not just a chosen few. How can writing best be practiced? What is the difference between therapeutic writing and writing for publication?
Goldberg and Cameron examine these and many other questions, while taking us inside their personal lives as committed writers and spiritual seekers. Edgy, surprising, and useful for its hard-won advice, The Writing Life is an invitation to a life-transforming act that requires no more than a pen, some paper, and the will to get started.
Thomas Moore On Creativity
Thomas Moore
Creativity, offers Thomas Moore, can make your life sacred. With Thomas Moore on Creativity, this bestselling author and former monk has crafted a doorway to a life rich in the blessings of everyday creativity. With a sweeping command of history and art, Moore takes us back to the age of the great philosophers, who believed creativity was a direct link to God. Moore calls for a re-imagining of the creative process. His intention - to define a way of living that nourishes the creative spirit - promises to bring awe and beauty to the smallest details in everyday life.
This is a creativity born of the soul, Moore says, and a path to self-enrichment open to every one of us. How is creativity related to the capacity to love? Is the "simple life" really what we need to create to be happy? Thomas Moore on Creativity is offered in the perennial tradition of the philosopher-teacher: a wise and gentle guide who challenges you to examine what you know while opening to new and life-changing possibilities.
Thomas Moore on Writing
Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore on Writing is an elegant reflection on the sacredness of words from this bestselling writer and authority on the inner life. Once a revered practice, guarded by monks in the sanctity of the scriptorium, writing continues to offer you direct passage to the soul's innermost corridors. Moore looks back at the writer's art and retrieves treasured practices for returning the written word to the realm of spirit and beauty. Thomas Moore on Writing will appeal to everyone awakened to the special pleasures of this most human of endeavors.
This all-new work explores:
- The historical and spiritual roots of writing
- Insights on journal writing
- Letter writing
- The writer's life
- Reading and writing as contemplative practices
- Lessons from great writers, and much more.
Lifelines
Christina Baldwin
Writing is a “lifeline,” teaches Christina Baldwin. It can guide you through life’s transitions, reveal parts of your self yearning to be expressed, and even transmit the essence of who you are to inspire future generations. On Lifelines, the visionary who started the personal writing movement shows you how to save your life in all these ways and more—with only a pen and paper. Baldwin’s program shows how, step-by-step, you can tap into the power of personal writing for deep reflection—and to transform any experience you’re going through from chaos and fear into clarity and gratitude.
The Marry Your Muse Workshop
Jan Phillips
“Words will take shape, form find life, spirit take flight.”
Would creating a work of art be easier for you if an inspiring spirit was here to guide you? To spark you with endless new ideas? And bless you with the divine energy that is at the heart of all creative endeavors? You hold in your hands what is essentially a map to the joyful place where your partner in creativity resides.
Designed for people who create for a living – or who want to – The Marry Your Muse Workshop is the first full-length curriculum devoted to uncovering the art spirit that makes every act of creation possible. Developed first at a writing conference for women, this approach to self-expression deflates the myths, fears, and self-doubt that hold us back from living full, creative lives. The secret of creativity, teaches author Jan Phillips, is not a secret at all. Through commitment to your own Muse – the goddess honored since ancient times as the sacred source of art and inspiration – you can “fall in love with your artist within,” and make each day of your life a masterpiece to remember.
Art Can Heal Your Life
Shaun McNiff
How art heals is a mystery as old as civilization itself. To the first shamans, no remedy was more important than the medicine of the imagination. For the past 30 years artist and art therapist Shaun McNiff has worked in this same tradition, seeking ways to engage the healing energy that exists within art, and building a case for a new "therapy of the imagination" that today is practiced worldwide. Now you can learn to access this natural medicine -- and explore your own soul's capacity for self-healing -- with Shaun McNiff's Art Can Heal Your Life.
If you’re one of the many who don’t know where to begin or how to start writing your book, or if you’ve started and stopped, and can’t seem to build the momentum or stick to a writing schedule, How to Start Writing A Book: Top Publishers and Bestselling Authors Reveal Their Secret Systems can help you. 
