Book equipped with write stuff

A writer needs three things: something to write about (a subject), something to write with (a pen) and something to write on (paper).

All three are contained in “The Writer’s Workshop in a Box: The Ultimate Tool to Begin Your Writing Life,” (Tarcher-Penguin, $22), edited by Sandra Bark.

Not really a box, this compact kit with a magnetic closure unfolds to reveal compartments that hold a ballpoint pen, a writer’s journal with lined paper, 30 cards with daily writing exercises and a 90-page softcover book, “The Art of Writing.”

The book contains writing lessons on topics that include getting started, evaluating your work, making revisions, and overcoming the dreaded writer’s block.

Among the suggested writing exercises:

Use a travel guide to help write a story set in another country, create a fictional story based on an older person’s real-life experience or write an editorial that takes the opposite view from one in the newspaper.