The Playful Way to Serious Writing: An Anything-Can-Happen Workbook to Inspire and Delight

Were a creative writing professor and a kindergarten teacher to conspire on a writing guide, it might look something like The Playful Way to Serious Writing: An Anything-Can-Happen Workbook to Inspire and Delight. In a big font that looks remarkably like a school teacher's penmanship, Roberta Allen (Fast Fiction; The Dreaming Girl) espouses the ""ENERGY method"" of finding your inner voice; it is, she says, ""a way to break that shell of fear,"" ""bypass the inner voice that stops you"" and "" lose yourself like a child in the magic of creating."" Suspension of cynicism is required, of course: write about what an FBI agent would think of your life, or choose a letter that has the most ""ENERGY"" and pen a story featuring words starting with that letter, and Allen is there to warmly cheer you along. (Sept.)