Fool’s Gold: Making Something from Nothing and Freeing your Creative Process
By Wooldridge, Susan (Book – 2007)
Summary: The author is wonderfully well-read. Anecdotes sprinkle this book through with quotes by Zen masters and poets and tips on how to be more creative. She describes her collage processes, her poetry composition, how she inspires others, and how they inspire her. This book is a heartwarming collage of words, love and a respect of human nature.
Review: Reading this book, it felt like a poor man’s Annie Dillard piece. For those who don’t know me very well, I would like to express how truly impressed I am with Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. To say that this is for the Dillard lover, on a budget, so to speak, is a fairly high recommendation. In this book there are some places where she dwells on her father’s death and her feeling of loss during her recent divorce, but I suppose that it adds a flavor that some people who have gone through those events can well appreciate, though not I. I particularly like her style of poetry, her emphasis on the accessibility. Anyone can write with flowery dignity and express something unique and special that can move you to a smile or tears. It’s not for special people, but anyone who can think of synonyms can eventually compose something original and thoughtful.
Rating: 7 bouts of torschlusspanik, which is German, literally “door shut panic,” the fear of closing doors and letting go of options
Favorite part:
“It’s important to be heroic, ambitious, productive, efficient, creative, and progressive, but these qualities don’t necessarily nurture soul. The soul has different concerns, of equal value: downtime for reflection, conversation, and reverie; beauty that is captivating and pleasuring; relatedness to the environs and to people; and any animal’s rhythm of rest and activity.”—Thomas Moore, p.85
Wine-pairing: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard.
