Becky Mushko

Helpful Books for Writers

When I do workshops or speaking engagements, I'm sometimes asked what "writing" books I recommend. Here's a list of books that have helped me:

Noah Lukeman's The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile is one of the best books for a fiction writer. His suggestions are practical and helpful.
William Zinsser’s On Writing Well is subtitled An Informal Guide to Writing Non-fiction. However, this very readable book is also helpful for writing fiction. Zinsser emphasizes style—especially getting rid of clutter. Every writer should own a copy.
Constance Hale’s Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose is another extremely helpful book—and it's fun to read.
Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life is one of my favorites—a combination of good advice, autobiography, and humor.
Stephen King’s autobiographical On Writing is also loaded with good advice.
Carolyn See's Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers has lots of good advice.
Rita Mae Brown's Starting From Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers' Manual addresses both the writing lifestyle and ways to improve writing.
Strunk and White's The Elements of Style is one of the classics that every writer should have. The original edition is available on Bartleby; later editions are available on Amazon.com.

. . . and there are others.

Writing Groups

While some folks consider writing a solitary activity, I find it helpful to network with other writers and get input from them. Currently, I belong to these groups:

Lake Writers (the literary branch of the Smith Mountain Arts Council) is an informal group that meets twice a month. Most of us are retirees who want to perfect our writing; many of us seek commercial publication for our novels; several of us write for local publications. The critiques are usually very helpful. We sponsor an annual writing contest for students, and we sometimes donate books to worthy causes.
Valley Writers (a chapter of the Virginia Writers Club) also meets twice a month and is a bit more varied (we have non-retiree members); again, the critiques are also helpful. Currently, I serve as Vice-president. In May 2009, we hosted a regional meeting of the Virginia Writers Club.
The Virginia Writers Club meets annually in either Richmond or Charlottesville but holds regional meetings at various places throughout Virginia. Currently, I serve as member-at large on the VWC Board of Governors.
A unnamed kid-lit crit group meets when needed. A couple of us are members of SCBWI and got the idea to form a crit group when we attended a 2008 mid-Atlantic SCBWI meeting in Richmond. This group is nit-picky and focused—and very supportive.
A Roanoke area SCBWI critique group will meets monthly. We e-mail our pages to the other members in advance of the meeting, so we are prepared to discuss and critique each other's work when we meet at a local coffee shop. (I really like this system!)

I'm also a member of SCBWI and the Roanoke Valley Branch of the League of American Pen Women.

I recommend that beginning writers (or not-so-beginning) find a group of like-minded individuals.