Snoopy's Guide To The Writing Life - Part I

The first book about writing I ever bought doesn’t look at all like your usual writing book. It is not a step-by-step manual about getting your novel down in one month (and, by the way, don’t waste your time with one of those, not even Stephen King manages it, what chances have you got?), neither is it one of those interesting anecdotal books that generate great ideas between the lines. No, my first writing book was Snoopy’s Guide to The Writing Life.



Snoopy’s Guide was published in 2002 and I find it’s really quite incredible that I waited until then to buy a book about writing. But you know something? I think it’s important to note that I already had a number of articles published by then (and I don’t mean in the my church’s gazette, but in publications as high-profile as Glamour magazine) and that, deep down, I always knew that getting down to writing is more important than reading about getting down to writing. And if you allow me to care about what you do with your time, let me suggest you do the same; do not read about writing, just do it.

I spent some time today laughing to tears as I re-read some of the well-known strips and some of the comments that the authors make. And for a few days I have decided to gift you with some of the pearls of hilarious wisdom of Snoopy’s Guide because, when it is a dark and stormy night, there is nothing like the good old beagle to keep one’s company.