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Reviews
Accidental Genius: Revolutionize Your Thinking Through Private Writing by Mark Levy, Tom Peters
yates9's review against another edition
4.0
Simple proposition but effective: free write yourself into a new transformed self. A bit cliche and rough around the edges but i found this book very useful and inspiring.
richardazia's review against another edition
3.0
Some interesting bits and pieces. I will see when I apply those ideas.
iacobus's review against another edition
1.0
Was required to read the book for a seminar course and, while the book is far outside of what I would normally read, I approached it with as open a mind as possible. I was disappointed.
The book is at least 2-5 times as long as it needs to be. Often entire chapters are accurately and completely recapped, without loss of information, in the last paragraph despite the 10+ pages that the chapter occupied. Reading the same idea over and over again was frustrating, to say the least.
Surprisingly, for a book about writing, the writing was terrible. Often times the author would repeat himself (and make a note that he was repeating himself) or say something was important but he wasn't going to discuss it. Rarely was the writing particularly focused. This might be okay in "free writing" but it is not acceptable in published materials (that, in theory, have been edited and revised).
The author presupposes that "writing" is the way you solve problems. If you don't solve problems by writing (e.g., your thought process works best when sketching/coding/mowing the lawn), well, you must be mistaken because "free writing" is the best way.
Finally, this I found most troubling, the author assumes that the answer to any given question is "in your head" already. You already know the answer --- you just don't know that you do. This might be the case in marketing or some areas of business, but it is definitely not the case in most of life. If I want the answers to many of the questions I deal with on a day-to-day basis, I'm far better served to go find someone (or a reference) that knows more about the problem than I do. I don't know the answers already and in many cases the answers are impractical (if not impossible) to self-"discover."
I might recommend this book to anyone who writes (and the truthfulness and rigor of their writing is secondary, such as fiction but not scientific writing), enjoys writing and thinks "free-writing" might be helpful to them. For anyone else, I suggest they avoid this book. Life is short, read something better.
The book is at least 2-5 times as long as it needs to be. Often entire chapters are accurately and completely recapped, without loss of information, in the last paragraph despite the 10+ pages that the chapter occupied. Reading the same idea over and over again was frustrating, to say the least.
Surprisingly, for a book about writing, the writing was terrible. Often times the author would repeat himself (and make a note that he was repeating himself) or say something was important but he wasn't going to discuss it. Rarely was the writing particularly focused. This might be okay in "free writing" but it is not acceptable in published materials (that, in theory, have been edited and revised).
The author presupposes that "writing" is the way you solve problems. If you don't solve problems by writing (e.g., your thought process works best when sketching/coding/mowing the lawn), well, you must be mistaken because "free writing" is the best way.
Finally, this I found most troubling, the author assumes that the answer to any given question is "in your head" already. You already know the answer --- you just don't know that you do. This might be the case in marketing or some areas of business, but it is definitely not the case in most of life. If I want the answers to many of the questions I deal with on a day-to-day basis, I'm far better served to go find someone (or a reference) that knows more about the problem than I do. I don't know the answers already and in many cases the answers are impractical (if not impossible) to self-"discover."
I might recommend this book to anyone who writes (and the truthfulness and rigor of their writing is secondary, such as fiction but not scientific writing), enjoys writing and thinks "free-writing" might be helpful to them. For anyone else, I suggest they avoid this book. Life is short, read something better.
bootman's review against another edition
5.0
This book is a must-read for all writers as well as creators who struggle with coming up with ideas. Mark Levy has mastered the art of freewriting, and he does a great job explaining why it works and why it helps. For anyone who is a perfectionist or gets stuck, I highly recommend this book. The chapters are short, and there are dozens of free-writing practices for you to try to get your wheels in motion so you can start creating.
pingthevile's review against another edition
3.0
Good coverage of the material, but it wasn't exactly what I'd been looking for.
pikapp22's review against another edition
1.0
Terrible book. If I could rate this zero, I would. Really struggled to get through. Like other reviewers, this is probably a 10 page essay stretched to almost 200 pages. Only read because it's on the Personal MBA list.
harishwriter's review against another edition
4.0
An entire book on free writing! That's little too much to chew. The book extols the virtues of free writing and presents the hints and examples to get started start with it right away. I liked certain passages of the book and skimmed through the examples (real use cases). My favourite sections are warm up exercises, chunking, creating a text collage and writing marathon.
warwriter's review against another edition
3.0
It was a quick read, and very interesting. Free-writing is like stretching before a big writing project, it's a spewing out of ideas onto paper so you can see how your mind works. But as another reviewer said, it's short enough that it could just as well be a blog post. I would definitely give some of the exercises in this book a try.
charliemartin's review against another edition
5.0
Deep and Concise.
A lot of suggestions aiming at enhancing your freewriting sessions.
I keep it as a reference.
A lot of suggestions aiming at enhancing your freewriting sessions.
I keep it as a reference.
dbuntinx's review against another edition
4.0
Nice exercises to start 'free-writing'. Fun to hear someone else's workflow and try it out yourself.