In Which I Begin A Series Of Posts On How-To Books About Writing

With Nanowrimo well underway, I figured now would be a good time to start writing about books about writing. In a few weeks, a stunning number of people are going to look at their rushed but triumphant first drafts and ask, Now what?. Some books on writing will be more helpful than others. The grandaddy of all how-to books on fiction is John Gardner's The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers. The essay I wrote about that book in the very earliest days of this blog, back in 2005, has held up surprisingly well. In fact, it remains one of my favorite posts of all time, so I've written a spiffy new into for it and incorporated it in this week's Black Gate blog post. Go check it out.