by Susan D. Anderson

Created on: March 22, 2010

Walking on Alligators, by Susan Shaughnessy, is full of carrots and sticks for the writer.  The carrots are reassurances that the awful obstacles and challenges you may be experiencing are common to writers everywhere, and – everyone promises – if you take the bitter with the better you will be rewarded.  The sticks are goads the size of cricket bats whacking across your fanny, telling you in no uncertain terms to snap out of it, get organized, develop a backbone, exercise discipline, and get to work.

The format of the book encourages selectivity.  Each page is devoted to a single quote from a writer about the writing life, followed by Shaughnessy’s discussion of some of the practical ways to connect that quote to the writing process.  Fiction writers, for example, will find one quote related to developing characters, another to plot, and another to dialogue.  Writers of every stripe will find discussions on the need to stay organized, to edit, and to keep learning the craft.  You can pick and choose, put yourself on a one-a-day plan, or otherwise turn the book into a personal tutor and mentor.

With almost 200 quotes included in this book, the range of topics is broad enough to make the book of value to many writers, especially those who struggle to create a time and place for writing in their lives.   Shaughnessy is a seasoned writer, and has an intimate’s familiarity with this beast that is sometimes like an exultation of larks and sometimes like an odiferous bear in hibernation.  She deftly teases out of each quote the names for what we experience when we write, as well as the underlying themes of our angst when we don’t write.

The subtitle of Walking on Alligators is, “A book of meditations for writers.”   Sometimes the meaning of the word “meditation” is an apt description of the summative comment at the end of each page (e.g., “Today I’ll think about my relationship to my tools. Do they help or hinder my writing?” page 96.).   Too often, however, the closing comments are heavy-handed, didactic, and not at all meditative.  We are being told to do something and do it today (e.g., “Today I’ll walk right to my writing place and begin to write,” page 32).  On several pages, the language of those final comments is so obscure that the reader has no idea what the “mediation” is supposed to focus on (e.g., “I am not ashamed to be startled when things get better.  I will accustom myself to better working conditions.  And then I will write,” page 42.)

If the meditation doesn’t work for you, the rest of the page still has plenty of fodder for a writer’s mind to refine.  There is room in the margin at the bottom of each page to jot down a few notes about how that quote and discussion connect to your own writing life.  Writing in a journal to explore those ideas is another form of meditation.  Walking on Alligators encourages all of us to work continuously to understand ourselves as writers as well as the writing process.

Learn more about this author, Susan D. Anderson.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.