Writing Creativity and Soul

“Creativity begins in chaos.... The challenge is to bring form and order to it,” contends The Secret Life of Bees author Kidd in this inspiring mix of memoir and writing guide. Kidd discovered her love of storytelling as a young girl, but in the “pre-feminist, pre-civil rights, religion-possessed South,” writing wasn’t seen as a viable career choice for women, she explains. She became a nurse, a wife, and a mother, but developed feelings of restlessness. She found solace in writing and declared to her family on her 30th birthday she was going to become a writer. She describes how her longing to write books people would connect with helped her push through years of rejection and bouts of self-doubt and reflects on inspiration she has drawn from writers, including Louisa May Alcott, Emily Dickinson, and Virginia Woolf, each of whom taught her “we all possess our own particular genius.” Kidd distills her belief that everyone has a creative well within them and unpacks her writing method: she finds outlining stories intuitive and necessary, structures plots with intensifying dramatic tension (a method known as Aristotle’s Incline), and imbues her stories with a strong sense of place. Both spiritual and practical, this takes the mystery out of building a creative life. Aspiring writers ought to take a look. (Oct.)