Milli, you have wakened a giant, and I thank you greatly for it!
—Sandy Fleming, Pipe Creek, Texas

I’m owning aspects of myself I was trying to hide before. It is wonderful being
released and it’s because you have this site and I know I’m not alone or crazy.
—Judith Chantler, Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia

TESTIMONIALS FOR THE BOOK

Even at 6:30 a.m., sans my first cup of coffee, the Chapter One excerpt made me laugh, it was so on target. I’ve got to read on so I can find out what’s going to happen to me!
—Sally McKissack-Lauck, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

I’ve studied hundreds of books on writing. This book has proven to be the best investment ever.
—D’Arcy Mayo, Online Writing Studio, Sydney, Australia

I want you to know that this book was written for me. It’s like you can read my mind.
—Margie Wellman, Clarion, Iowa

Just read your first chapter last night, and you were speaking directly to me! If my fiancee hadn’t been sleeping I would have shouted, “That is SO me!” I’m sure that is SO a lot of people, and I’m not the first to tell you that, but I just had to say thanks!
—Jenn Martin, Hawai’i

I love your book. I reading the book in bed when I read, “Don’t read this in bed!” So I got up and sat in a chair and did the identical exercise that we had done on Saturday [at the Fear of Writing Clinic], the jazz band scenario. The fun part . . . I wrote an entirely different story from the one on Saturday. I even started a poem today and had not written a poem in 7-8 years!
—Bev Emmons, San Antonio, Texas

By the time I got to the “letting the dog out to play” part of your book I was so active with my two journals that I refer to them all day long and jot down ideas, thoughts and things that happened. The interplay is glorious. Sometimes things are flooding in so fast I have to write them up on the computer. Oh, it is all so exciting and it’s putting me into new habits. Habits of noticing more, of writing things down, of making a record. The habit of writing longer will come from this, I am sure. Already I came in from my walk one day this week and made an outline for a book I want to write. Now I believe I know what it is to get into writing!!!!! I mean I really feel it now, after seeing the results of “letting it out.”
—Catherine Greti, Menlo Park, California

Milli, you cannot imagine how much positive impact you have had on me, my writing, and I’m sure, tons of other people!
—Sandy Fleming, Pipe Creek, Texas

Thank you! Your [book excerpt] has given me two gifts—the knowledge that others are fighting the same inner battle of writing insecurity and, more importantly, that we can laugh at these insecurities and write anyway!
—Reader feedback, book excerpt at Innerself, www.innerself.com

I found a big piece of myself as I read this [book excerpt]. I thank the author for her courage in writing about her fear of writing in such a provoking manner.
—Reader feedback, book excerpt at Innerself, www.innerself.com

Lately I’ve been learning about going into feelings rather than avoiding them, but this is the first time I’ve been introduced to the idea of going straight into the fear of writing. What a wonderful, beautiful twist for me to see.
—Reader feedback, book excerpt at Innerself, www.innerself.com

TESTIMONIALS FOR THE STORYTELLER WRITING PROMPTS

I’ve had loads of fun doing the Storyteller exercises!
—Dena Harris, Madison, North Carolina

Great writing exercises! Nothing has set me free like these.
—Lyn Canham, Sandia Park, New Mexico

Wow, I was laughing out loud at some of the skeleton plots! This is great stuff! I think our readers are really going to enjoy this contest.
—Krista Barrett, editor, writergazette.com

I’m excited to have won the contest (my first!) and even more thrilled to be the recipient of your book. I look forward to reading it and growing as a writer as I use more of your writing exercises.
—Dena Harris, Madison, North Carolina

I really am thrilled with this new way of writing. It seems to bypass the clinical/critical mind and get right to the creativity.
—Sandy Schairer, Tijeras, New Mexico

The freedom part of it, for me, is getting away from technical writing and having the chance to write something more fanciful. Also, not being critiqued on your English, spelling, formatting of paragraphs and so on. It’s very therapeutic to run away from reality for a while! And humor comes naturally using the Storyteller prompts. It even affects my other writing.
—John Gaines, Boerne, Texas

It really got them going. Even one student who never liked to write and usually stalled around was engaged.
—Micah Roseberry, principal, Country Day School, Taos, New Mexico, on using the Storyteller prompts with her sixth graders

One great thing about the Storyteller prompts is that I can take a break from a longer piece (such as my novel #2) and have some real fun! Not that my regular writing isn’t fun, but I believe it’s important to stay fresh, and doing smaller projects really helps with that. But the best part about doing the Storyteller exercises is that each story can be saved and worked on again later—either as a novel or as a short story that might be worth submitting to a magazine or writing contest.
—Jennifer Turner, Stevens Point, Wisconsin, author of Stark Knight and 7 other titles

Dear Milli: Thank you so very much for coming to the LAWG meeting last night. Everybody had a lot of fun. And wasn’t it fun to see what a group of ‘brave’ [published] writers can do with the Storyteller prompts? The writing was hilarious and very creative. It’s intriguing to think that your prompts have applications for motivating even the seasoned writer into another level of creativity.
—Penelope Stowell, host of the Fear of Writing Clinic presented by Milli to the Los Alamos Writers’ Group, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 4/25/02

Milli’s Storyteller exercises have helped me go from a closet writer who dreamed of writing a novel when I retire, to a writer who began writing a book during what for me is the annual time crunch—tax season!
—Skip Pedlar, CPA, Taos, New Mexico

TESTIMONIALS FOR THE 4 SHORT STORIES IN FEAR OF WRITING

I read “The God of Mystery” yesterday. I couldn’t put it down!
—Sandy Fleming, Pipe Creek, Texas

I don’t know if I ever told you, but the story about the grandfather baby-sitting his great-grandchild in Fear of Writing was one of the best short stories I’ve ever read.
—Sandy Schairer, Tijeras, New Mexico (referring to “The God of Mystery”)

The story “Worm Medicine,” with images I will never forget, made the point real—personal—alive and breathing. Afterwards, I went through and in a few hours fixed the corner I’d painted myself into with my novel. Woohoo!
—BJ Apostol, Santee, California

I just finished “The Way Dempsey Works.” The description of the mountains around Taos and the drive up to his adobe house was all too real for me. You made the coffee shop come alive. I could hear the chatter and smell the coffee and I felt like I had met Dempsey before.
—John Gaines, Boerne, Texas

I’d been battling a case of writer’s block ever since the terrorist attack on September 11. Each word needed to be squeezed out of me like lemon juice, and when it hit the page it was just as sour. And then I read “Jack’s House.” Every obstacle Helen encountered, every fear she had, every thought she had, paralleled my own troubles so completely I was stunned. I had been terrified that my fiction was trivial, meaningless, and without purpose, but when I finished reading “Jack’s House” I understood what I needed to do. This was the miracle I’d been searching for. Thank you!
—J.R. Turner, Stevens Point, Wisconsin, author of Stark Knight and 7 other titles

The phrase “fear of writing” has characterized my entire
creative writing experience. Good stuff! Thanks!
—Ashley Middleton

I’m still so amazed at how the Fear of Writing method WORKS for me.
I can write creatively and leave my stuffy old left brain out of it!
—Sandy Schairer, Tijeras, New Mexico