Suggested Books on Writing

I feel like maybe I already wrote a post like this, but hey, you can never have too many posts with book reqs, right?

Here are some books on writing that really made an impression on me. They're worth checking out. In no particular order. Some are OOP, but a lot of them should be easily found in your local library, through ILL, or by buying off teh interwebs.

Zen and the Art of Writing - Ray Bradbury
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Science Fiction - Cory Doctorow and Karl Schroeder
Hooked: write fiction that grabs readers at page one and never lets them go - Les Edgerton
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft - Stephen King

I feel like there's more. Then again, if those are the four that spring to mind, they must have been the four to make the biggest impression. Delany and LeGuin both have essays and collections on sf/f and writing which are definitely worth checking out too.

What prompted this post is that I started reading a children's book Writing Magic by Gail Carson Levine, and there's some really good stuff in there already. Not just for kids. Though I kind of wish I had read this book as a kid. One thing she says is that the writing you do as a kid can be a bridge later on for your adult self to try to get back into the mindset of the time it was written. Otherwise you'll really forget and have very little clue.

She's really covering all of the.. I was going to say basics, but they're not really basic if you don't know them, are they? She's covering all of the important stuff, let's put it that way. And she's doing it in an easy to read and funny style, knowing her audience. Which just makes it that much more enjoyable to read this as an adult.

I'm trying not to hold the fact that she won a Newbery against her. After all, Neil Gaiman won one too.