Personable and specific advice offering real help for writers struggling to find a practical path forward.
A self-help guide for aspiring writers navigating the reality of maintaining a full-time job.
Drawing from his own career as a software developer filled with “kick-me-when-I’m-down kind of day[s]”, the author here shows how creative ambitions can coexist with corporate realities. Each chapter follows a standard format, complete with summaries and takeaways, with DeVito frequently punctuating his points with humor (“Office Space, anyone?” he ruefully asks, wishing day jobs could be avoided altogether). The author focuses on pragmatism, reminding readers that the day job, which provides structure and money, is both the greatest obstacle to and a necessity for continuing their creative work. His thorough accounting of everything a writer working another gig needs to thrive ranges from micro-goals, such as writing for five minutes a day (“you will end up writing for more than five minutes,” he promises), to big-picture planning, to keeping the worlds of work and writing separate. DeVito aims to inspire readers by delving into his own story and those of numerous other writers who have defied the odds to get their work published, highlighting what is possible (“If you want it bad enough and for the right reasons, you cannot fail”). Though much of the advice here is standard fare for books on writing (including chapters encouraging writers to be patient and set goals), DeVito’s voice is that of a trusted confidant, offering not just one solution but many. The book truly shines in its specificity, especially in chapters about keeping writing separate from work obligations, navigating company policies, and hiring help (such as editors or ghostwriters). The author even addresses best practices for using AI. Budding writers will find the frank discussions of costs and resources very helpful if they feel lost, and the author’s bright optimism will leave them ready to tackle the true demands of balancing creative endeavors with a career.
Personable and specific advice offering real help for writers struggling to find a practical path forward.Pub Date: July 23, 2025
ISBN: 9798985445169
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.
Avuncular observations on matters historical from the late popularizer of the past.
McCullough made a fine career of storytelling his way through past events and the great men (and occasional woman) of long-ago American history. In that regard, to say nothing of his eschewing modern technology in favor of the typewriter (“I love the way the bell rings every time I swing the carriage lever”), he might be thought of as belonging to a past age himself. In this set of occasional pieces, including various speeches and genial essays on what to read and how to write, he strikes a strong tone as an old-fashioned moralist: “Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude,” he thunders. “It’s a form of ingratitude.” There are some charming reminiscences in here. One concerns cajoling his way into a meeting with Arthur Schlesinger in order to pitch a speech to presidential candidate John F. Kennedy: Where Richard Nixon “has no character and no convictions,” he opined, Kennedy “is appealing to our best instincts.” McCullough allows that it wasn’t the strongest of ideas, but Schlesinger told him to write up a speech anyway, and when it got to Kennedy, “he gave a speech in which there was one paragraph that had once sentence written by me.” Some of McCullough’s appreciations here are of writers who are not much read these days, such as Herman Wouk and Paul Horgan; a long piece concerns a president who’s been largely lost in the shuffle too, Harry Truman, whose decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan McCullough defends. At his best here, McCullough uses history as a way to orient thinking about the present, and with luck to good ends: “I am a short-range pessimist and a long-range optimist. I sincerely believe that we may be on the way to a very different and far better time.”
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781668098998
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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