Doodling for Writers

Drawing and doodling — in the margins, on napkins, anywhere — can contribute to your writing process and fuel your creativity.   In Doodling for Writers, memoirist and cartoonist Rebecca Fish Ewan combines her wit and wisdom with practical, engaging prompts and activities to illustrate how simple sketching can get you over hurdles, bring back memories, and even provide a roadmap for where your story needs to go. Full of encouragement and anecdotes, Fish Ewan’s cartoon-self – accompanied by a few sidekicks – will guide you through basics of drawing and then show you to how to apply it to your writing process through character sketches, place maps, and more. In the author-illustrator’s words, “This book is not about getting writers to abandon their craft so they can become artists. For one, writing is an art form, so they’re already artists. For two, this book is about letting drawing enrich their writing life, not replace it.” Pick up this book, pick up a pencil… and erase the notion that you can’t draw.   Poet/cartoonist Rebecca Fish Ewan's passion is mingling text with visual art, primarily in ink and watercolor, to tell stories of place and memory. Her hybrid-form work has appeared in After the Art, Brevity, Crab Fat, Survivor Zine, Hip Mama, Mutha, TNB, Punctuate & Under the Gum Tree. Her illustrations and essay, “The Deepest Place on Earth,” were published in the Literary Kitchen anthology, Places Like Home. She is the author of A Land Between, By the Forces of Gravity: A Memoir, the chapbook Water Marks, and her newest book, Doodling for Writers. Rebecca has an MFA in creative writing from ASU, where she has been a landscape design professor for 25+ years. She grew up in Berkeley, California, and lives with her family in Arizona.    “I love this book! Insightful, instructive, charming, and encouraging, Rebecca Fish Ewan’s prompts and provocations will open new doors into your writing practice – and a drawing practice, too. In Doodling for Writers, erasers are like editors, lines have – or are – their own vocabulary, writers can be deciduous, and pleasure is paramount. A mix of practical advice and inspiring prompts, this book is a must for any writer who wants to enrich their process. It’s also a gentle but complete rebuttal of the all-too-common claim, “I can’t draw.” You can! And this book delightfully shows you how.” -- Randon Billings Noble, author of Be with Me Always "Rebecca Fish Ewan's Doodling for Writers gently takes the reluctant drawer on a masterful journey into the vast world of doodling. Full of easy to follow prompts and direct ways to connect doodling to the writing process, this book will be a must-have on any writer's shelf. It's funny, rich, irreverent and profoundly relevant to today's creatives." -- Laraine Herring, author of A Constellation of Ghosts: A Speculative Memoir with Ravens.   “A delightful and wise guide to creative empowerment through the understated power of the doodle. Rebecca Fish Ewan is the perfect drawing buddy and Doodling for Writers contains a wealth of practical advice to get you drawing and visual perspectives to enrich your writing. It's essential reading for any writer who draws or who aspires to, even if you doubt your artistic abilities. With this book as your companion, you'll be happily drawing before you know it.” -- Vanessa Berry, author of Mirror Sydney   “Rebecca Fish Ewan’s Doodling for Writers is a super-fun book, but it’s also subversive, giving a view into the mechanics of creativity while posing as a craft book. Not only will this wonderful volume take a seat on the shelf next to Hillary Chute’s Why Comics?, Scott McLoud’s Making Comics, and Lynda Barry’s Syllabus—it extends the conversation about how visual thinking can help us all. All writers benefit from a comics mindset, Fish Ewan proposes. Part an inspirational call to one’s inner artist, part a compendium of engaging and inspiring prompts, part a quintessential work of show don’t tell, Doodling for Writers is full of good cheer and wise words. One wants to caution the reader: don’t be fooled, this is a weighty book. But in the end, it’s a call to enjoy the process and above all have good time.” -- Elizabeth Kadetsky, author of The Memory Eaters