My Unedited Writing Year by Hope Lyda, 368 pages. NON-FICTION
Harvest House Publishers, 2019. $20.
Language: G (0 swears, 0 “f”); Mature Content: G; Violence: G
BUYING ADVISORY: MS, HS - NO
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
Lyda gives readers 365 invitations to get the creative juices flowing and to assure you that you are, in fact, a writer. With any sort of prompt you can think of -- from making lists to free writes to what if scenarios to writing prayers and blessings -- Lyda plans to help you stretch those writing muscles.
Creativity is not something that Lyda is in want of, but I have discovered that I don’t have as much of it as I thought -- though I suspect that I have more now after accepting some of the Lyda’s invitations. I loved going through the invitations to write from Lyda and that they were all so different. Writing ended up being addictive for me, and I would do several prompts in a row, even when I didn’t have time to. The various prompts helped to stretch the way that I think and engaged my mind with new thoughts. I love this book and think that it is a great undertaking for writers and those who don’t call themselves writers alike. However, I have advised that it not be bought for a library because it invites readers to write within its pages to fully engage with the prompts and the 365 prompts encourages readers to use it as a guide and companion for an entire year, both aspects of which break common library policies.
Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen

A really good concept to encourage everybody to write. I love the variations in the tasks, however the formatting for kindle isn’t great and made it hard to read.

I've been subject – and at the front of – far too many creative writing sessions than I care to remember, so I fully recognise what this book is doing. Coming from a very religious publishing house, it does emphasise the spiritual at times, but it still provides a very reasonable daily writing exercise, with added bonus hints and suggestions along the way. This then is not so much for the person mid-flow with a fantasy trilogy, but for the writer seeking isolated exercises, hence one day will be a prayer, another a self-reflective, life-writing list, and then a piece of pure fiction. Each page is pretty much blank, with just the initial sentence or two of impetus at the top and the rest for you to fill. The only quibble is that a lot of it is designed to inspire automatic writing, and the book is reluctant to admit that. The "unedited" of the title, invites to take just one word or phrase as a springboard, ideas of writing in landscape, or with your non-dominant hand – all are aspects of automatic writing, where you just splodge things down and see if you get an idea out of the jumble you're left with. Why this volume couldn't just admit that was what it was after to the newcomer I fail to know. But for breadth of interesting stimuli, and positive attitude, this does not fail to merit its place on a good writer's shelf of prompts. Lack of welcome notes (what even is a word mountain??!!), mindfulness wiffle, and intrusion of Christianity aside, this is definitely four stars - you could be holding it and using it a lot more for a lot longer than any other book you ever buy.

Oh, and wouldn't you know – a book with 365 daily things comes out just before we hit a leap year?!

My unedited Writing Year is an outstanding book to help you write and improve your writing. Inside this book, you will find many excellent ideas on what to write about and a lot of fun activities.

If you want to improve your writing, you have to write a lot, and this book is an excellent tool to help you with that. I tried some of the ideas, and I have to try some more.

Just what is needed to prevent prevarication or at least cause it to drag its feet a little. The ideas and prompts put the mind into a writing scenario which can then be attacked without wondering or worrying about plotlines or character growth, at least for a little while.

I like the idea of having somewhere to indulge in unstructured and unhindered activities where the only objective is to put words on a page. There is no requirement to follow up if the activity didn't hold your attention nor any discouragement if one idea is run with for far longer than suggested.

All that is needed along with this excellent book is a nice new notebook and a handful of sharpened pencils. I for one can't wait to begin.

I was able to read an advanced copy of this book thanks to NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an unbiased review and would recommend it to anyone who wants to begin a year with a clean slate and a wealth of provided prompts.

Really fun book! There were some new activities and prompts I’ve not seen or thought to try before and it was really fun to have a little mental brain wash and clean fog out and get inspired and amped again!

This is a great workbook, you get so many ideas, points of reflection, journal prompts and questions to ponder about. I love this.
Thanks Netgalley for the eARC.

This was a really informative book that was also really fun. If you ever dreamed of being a writer, this book gives you some tools to do so. I loved it!

DISCLAIMER: I received a digital copy of this book from NetGallery in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This book is just what I needed. I am constantly seeking journal prompts and inspiration to help me with my personal growth and writing skills.

I love the fresh ideas and perspective.

This book is so amazing that I have already pre-ordered a print version for my personal library.

This is a fantastic writer's resource. Hope Lyda has put together a workbook with a prompt for every day of the year to help spark creativity. These prompts are categorized as "Writing Practice & Nonfiction", "Life Journey," "Spiritual Inspiration" (through a Christian perspective), Fiction & Poetry," and "Creative Jump Starts." Each comes with a symbol (Writing Practice is a pencil, for example) that is organized in a table of contents for helpful reference if you wanted to jump around to a specific type of prompt.

I loved the layout of the book--every page is different and illustrated and would be perfect for those of us who like the idea of a bullet journal, but aren't that artistically inclined ourselves. I'd definitely look out for this book when it releases.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harvest House Publishers for providing this review copy.