Writing Down the Bones is writing advice disguised as a Zen manual, or possibly the other way around. Goldberg's project as a writing instructor is to unleash your voice as an author. To do this, you have to get yourself into a particular kind of mindspace where you're as close to the universe as possible, and then let the words bubble up. The rules of language, syntax, grammar, spelling, your inner editor, are all obstacles in finding your voice. Make writing your practice, practice daily (but not in a chore-like obligatory way), and the hot words will come. And once you have some hot words, the step is to cut away everything but, to leave only the powerful truth.

There are some things I like. Goldberg's argument is radically democratic, anyone can be a writer, even to the point of outsider art. Writing should be a healing process, away from the torment of writer's block.

My caveats are that the book consists of short anecdotal sections, and only about half of them really hit for me. There's a lot of redundancy and things falling short. The second caveat is that Goldberg's advice is really tilted towards certain kinds of writing; poems, memoirs, auto-biographical short stories. More heavily crafted or plotted forms may require more structure than Zen. But she's essentially right on two key points, writer's have to write, and good voice can make up for many flaws.