The Soul of the Full-Length Manuscript: Turning Life's Wounds into the Gift of Literary Fiction, Memoir, or Poetry - Softcover

Lockhart, Zelda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0978910265 ISBN 13: 9780978910266

Publisher: Lavenson Press Studios, 2017

Synopsis

"This book should come with a warning label: 'Be ready, you are going to have to go deeper than you ever imagined.'" Dorothy Allison Author of Bastard Out of Carolina

Utilize your emotional, psychological, and spiritual self to produce the first draft of a full-length manuscript. This book helps you take the stuff that has been making a mess of your life and use it instead to make art, harmonized with craft. It acts as creative companion for individuals (those with or without writing experience) as they journey through the sharing of an impactful event in life, do exercises that help them transform internal obstacles into external gifts, and then write resolution and outcome. Lockhart's own rough drafts and excerpts from published fiction, memoir, and poetry of writers like Toi Derricotte, Helena Marķa Viramontes, and Ta-Nehisi Coates, along with films by writers and directors like Sherman Alexie offer kinship on the journey of unearthing and sharing a personal plot.

At times, you will feel that the book is designed to produce a new emotional, psychological, and spiritual you and that your resulting manuscript is merely the byproduct. Both are true of the design, because the purpose of art is to make yourself vulnerable about your experiences here in life--to have the courage to be vulnerable about those experiences so that you can connect with others who came here solo like you and will leave solo just like you.

And that process of sharing is transformative.

About this title

About the Author:

Zelda Lockhart is currently Alumni Endowed Chair for the Department of Language and Literature at North Carolina Central University teaching creative writing, and is director at LaVenson Press Studios: Inspiring Women to Self-Define through Writing & Publishing. She is pursuing a PhD in Expressive Art Therapies, holds an MA in literature, and a certificate in writing, directing, and editing film from the NY Film Academy. She lectures across the US on issues specific to the human struggle and on ways that consuming and creating literature are good for what ails us. She welcomes visits to her websites: www.ZeldaLockhart.com www.LaVensonPressStudios.com

Review:

"A guide to confronting one's own life issues, it is definitely a powerful

system for helping the writer complete a full-length manuscript but it

also requires a serious examination of how our life stories are reflected

and shaped in our work. This book should come with a warning label:

'Be ready, you are going to have to go deeper than you ever imagined.' "

- Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina

"Zelda Lockhart's soulful guide for fledgling writers is an extraordinary

gift of generosity and eloquence, a treasure map of our uncharted imaginative

topographies." - Dana Heller, Eminent Scholar of English, Old

Dominion University

"Rather than hiding from our past and the difficulties we have each

endured, Lockhart teaches us how to shine a light on those painful memories

and make sense of them through writing resolutions to those stories.

Part creative writing and part therapeutic writing, Lockhart's work is

open, accessible, and allows writers to gain new perspectives on life events

that have shaped us." - Dr. Michele Forinash, director of Expressive

Therapies Division, Lesley University

"The main message in this book is to transform your psychological wounds

and utilize your spiritual strength in order to find your authentic voice.

And like a good therapist or counselor, Lockhart is there with you all

the way, providing encouraging insights and important ideas to keep you

moving along the path. This is a must-read for anyone who has ever wanted

to write an emotionally forceful and soulful piece of fiction,

memoir, or poetry." - Dr. Mitchell Kossak, associate professor of counseling

and expressive therapies at Lesley University and author of Attunement

in Expressive Arts Therapy: Toward an Understanding of Embodied Empathy

About this edition

• Publisher: Lavenson Press Studios
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0978910265
• ISBN 13: 9780978910266
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 276