Book Review:
Snoopy's Guide to the
Writing Life
Reviewed By Valerie Comer
Copyright © 2009 by Valerie Comer, All Rights Reserved
"It was a dark and stormy
night. Suddenly, a shot rang out. A door slammed.
The maid screamed. Suddenly,
a pirate ship appeared on the horizon!
While millions of people
were starving, the king lived in luxury.
Meanwhile, on a small farm
in Kansas, a boy was growing up." ~~Snoopy
Barnaby Conrad, in an
interview with Charles Schulz, asked the mastermind behind the
Peanuts cartoons if he thought of himself as a frustrated writer
and/or painter.
"No," he said. "I've just
always wanted to be a cartoonist, and I'm happy to be just that.
Cartooning is a fairly sort of a proposition. You have to be
fairly intelligent--if you were really intelligent you'd be doing
something else; you have to draw fairly well--if you drew really well
you'd be a painter; you have to write fairly well--if you wrote really
well you'd be writing books. It's great for a fairly person like me."
Charles Schulz had a
fairly good idea of a writer's life, even so, though he imbued the
most unlikely of his characters with the yen to be a famous author: the
beagle, Snoopy.
Snoopy's Guide to the
Writing Life is a
tribute to Schulz. It contains the entire set of cartoons depicting
Snoopy-the-Writer in one volume, as well as the advice of over thirty
authors from Danielle Steel to Elmore Leonard. What kind of advice?
Advice for Snoopy (and other writers who might be stuck in a rut!) on
the writing life.
Each of the contributed
essays is in answer to a specific cartoon. When Lucy tells Snoopy, "You
should write a 'page turner'. Write a book that will 'sweep booksellers
off their feet!' You should write a book that is 'powerful, yet
heartwarming!'" Snoopy thinks, "I'm having trouble with the first
sentence..."
To this, Clive Cussler
responds, "Snoopy, try this when you sit down to the typewriter: Just
say to yourself, 'What if?'"
Cherie Carter-Scott shares
advice on writing a self-help book, and though the essay is aimed at
Snoopy, the wisdom is useful for anyone writing non-fiction.
Snoopy writes: "Those years
in Paris were to be among the finest of her life. Looking back, she
once remarked, 'Those years in Paris were among the finest of my life.'
That was what she said when she looked back upon those years in Paris
where she spent some of the finest years of her life." Then he stares
at the typewriter. "I think this is going to need a little editing..."
Thomas McGuane encourages
Snoopy to find a way to let the words flow, to not worry too much about
editing right at that moment.
The advice ranges from Julia
Child's thoughts on writing cookbooks to Shelly Lowenkopf's
commiseration with all of Snoopy's rejection slips to Frances Weaver's
thoughts on humor in writing.
Charles Schulz's son Monte
says this about his father: "Snoopy perched in front of a typewriter on
his famous doghouse is one of the enduring images of Peanuts.
His flights of literary imagination take hold of every writer and remind
us (as if we needed reminding) that once we admit to ourselves we
require and adore the written word and the writer's life, we are bound
to chase that ever elusive perfect sentence, paragraph, story, novel,
poem. Rejections, blocks, false starts, and dead ends distract us; they
cannot lead us away from this holy destiny we know is ours. Without a
doubt, my father used Snoopy the author to express his own love and
frustration with the creative process, to illuminate the writer's life
by poking fun at the often incomprehensible divide between author and
publisher while showing the amazing resilience of the everyday writer
struggling for acceptance and acknowledgment."
This slim volume showcases
the struggle that is in every writer and reminds us that we are in the
best of company--not only that of the great Charles Schulz but Snoopy
himself!
Snoopy's Guide to the
Writing Life
Edited by Barnaby Conrad
and Monte Schulz
Published by Writers
Digest Books
ISBN: 1582971943
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