how natalie got her groove back
When I was trying to find my writer’s voice, way back when I was in my 20s, I found Natalie Goldberg. In the decades since, I have gone back to her Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind over and over. She is an inspiring and grounded writing teacher, and I was looking forward to getting into her new book. When I saw that she read the audio book herself, I knew that was how I wanted to experience this book. And I’m so glad I did.
While I love Goldberg’s instructional books, filled with beautiful prose and mindful compassion, this book is especially personal, and hearing it read by the author took it to a new level. Writing on Empty isn’t really what the subtitle says (A Guide to Finding Your Voice), but it is about Goldberg’s journey through a dry spell and how she found her voice again. After twenty-some books that flowed from her easily, she hit a wall (she refuses to use the term “writer’s block”) and wasn’t sure what to write next. Or if she was going to write again. Clearly, she got past that, as we’re able to read this book, but it was not an easy journey for her.
Writing on Empty starts with the pandemic, when Goldberg was alone and stuck at home. She had no classes to teach, no students to leave. She was just home, day after day, going stir crazy. And eventually she realized that this was how her mother felt. As a child, Goldberg didn’t have a great relationship with her mother, and the more she was stuck at home with nothing to do and nowhere to go, the more she could understand her mother, who found herself stuck at home as a young woman expected to take care of her husband, children, and home.
Finally, the pandemic was less dangerous, vaccines were available, and places started to open up again. Goldberg found herself traveling, meeting strangers, and visiting graves. After wanting to go for 30 years, she finds herself in Idaho, the place where Ernest Hemingway is buried. She found his gravestone, between two pine trees, and poured her heart out to him. She thought about her history with his books and how they moved her. She feels like he gives her some advice after it all, “Get going.” And she does.
She struggles to write her new book about the problems that technology may be causing us, but she rediscovers her love of reading by reading Bill Buford’s book about cooking in France. She takes a trip to her favorite lake to find it drained and sets out to find out why. She meets up with a writer friend and works on memory puzzles. She remembers her high school English teacher and what he would think of her current writing. And she thinks back to when she first decided she wanted to be with women instead of men.
While walking back through her life and keeping her hands moving on the page, Goldberg was able to write again. Writing on Empty is the result. Part memoir, part love letter to words, it’s a compelling reminder of how writing—and life—require you to keep showing up. It’s a guide to finding your voice only by example, as Goldberg’s curiosity and insights that lead her back to her writing can serve as a vague roadmap to others who are struggling to find their voice. But it’s not specifically instructional as a traditional writing book, and I think that the publisher let her down and let us down by adding that subtitle to the work.
I loved listening to Goldberg herself narrate this book, especially the stories about her mother, which I think were more poignant told by the author herself. Since this book had so many personal stories, hearing it in Goldberg’s voice brought an intimacy to the book that I wasn’t expecting. But it was moving and smart and heartbreaking and honest, much like the rest of Goldberg’s books, and it will take up space in my head for some weeks to come.
A copy of the audio book for Writing on Empty was provided by Macmillan Audio, and egalleys were provided by St. Martin’s Press, both through NetGalley, with many thanks.
