Every week, I spelunk into the Writer’s Digest archives to find the wisest, funniest, or downright strangest moments from our 92 years of publication.

Harper Lee’s birthday is tomorrow, so today I went on a hunt to find some Harper Lee quotes somewhere in our archives. I didn’t exactly troll up an entire interview (no surprise there, given her lack of media appearances since To Kill a Mockingbird was published*), but I did stumble on this gold mine from 1961.

For a cover story interviewing Lee and a slew of other writers—John Steinbeck, Rod Serling, Carl Sandburg, James Thurber—we posed the question, “What advice would you offer a person who aspires to a writing career?” and asked for a single response.

Here’s their writing advice. I’m in the process of geeking out and printing Sandburg’s right now so I can place it above my desk.

As for our swag drawing, thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts on Janet Evanovich and outlining last week. We dipped a hand into the random WD swag hat, and a name emerged: Sharon Vander Meer. Sharon, can you email [email protected], ATTN: Zachary Petit, and I’ll send you a list of free books to choose from?

Happy Friday!

*Here’s to hoping it wasn’t because we cited Lee as the author of To Kill a Hummingbird. Oy. Some 50 years later, WD still regrets (and still heavily cringes at) the error. Sorry, Harper!

Erskine Caldwell, Carl Sandburg, William Inge, Robert Fuoss

Erle Stanley Gardner, Herb Mayes, Paul Engle, Richard Gehman, Francois Sagan

Thomas B. Costain, Harper Lee, John Steinbeck, Rod Serling

Stirling Silliphant, Allen Drury, Paul Scott Mowrer, James Thurber

• For more quotes from writing legends—90, to be exact—read our 90-year retrospective here.
• Like what you read from WD online? Don’t miss an issue in print!

Photo Credit: Patricia Williams

One of the best parts of my job as editor of Writer’s Digest magazine is that I frequently have the chance to speak with authors I admire as part of our ongoing WD Interview series. To say that our current issue’s cover subject, Lisa See, is no exception would be a huge understatement. I’ve long been in awe of our See for the sheer scope of her novels—richly re-imagined historical tales set in forgotten places and times that are striking in contrast to our own (if you have yet to read her work, think remote villages in ancient China). This is not a writer who shies away from a massive undertaking in the name of a good story. (The mind boggles at the scope of her research alone, but it turns out that’s her favorite part!—a fact that could, come to think of it, have a lot to do with her success.)

I’m not sure I can think of anyone better to offer up writing advice, especially for those times when you’re feeling most discouraged. In our conversation, she spoke candidly about persevering without being intimidated by the scope of a story, or by the odds against trying to sell it, or by the naysayers in your life who think your time would be better spent doing something with surer results. Here are a few of my favorite words of advice on writing from our exclusive WD Interview.

3 Reasons to Keep Writing, in the Words of Lisa See

1. “There’s so much that gets published every year. We think of it as being so hard, and it is—I’m not saying it isn’t hard. But really there’s so much, and there are so many ways to publish things, and you have to be open to them, especially now, with the way the business is changing.”

2. “You’ve got to write what you’re most passionate about. You shouldn’t think that writing will change your life—but what it can do is create passion in your life.“

3. “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan was my fifth book. At that point I was what they called a ‘critically acclaimed writer.’ You know what that means? You get lovely reviews, and nobody reads your books. When I started Snow Flower, a lot of people said, ‘Nobody’s going to read that.’ People would say, ‘Nobody wants to know about China. Couldn’t you write something, just, American?’ People would say that to me. ‘If only you could have more American characters in your books, I think it would really help!’ And so I had in my mind a number. I thought, OK, if I’m lucky, 5,000 people will read this—but they’re going to be the right 5,000 people. I just thought, I have to tell this story, and maybe if I’m lucky it will find this small audience. And of course it turned out everybody was wrong and it was the big breakout book. But you can’t predict! It could’ve just as easily gone the other way where maybe only 1,000 people read it—and it still would have been the right 1,000.”

These inspiring (and refreshingly down to earth, wouldn’t you agree?) words are just a taste of what Lisa See had to say in her interview with WD. For more of her wonderful advice on writing, getting published and much more, check out the full article in our May/June issue (available now at the Writer’s Digest shop, on your favorite newsstand, or for instant download here), which includes plenty of the

Every week, I spelunk into the Writer’s Digest archives to find the wisest, funniest, or downright strangest moments from our 92 years of publication.

Today: Here’s to Janet Evanovich (and that we all might one day hit it as big as Janet Evanovich). The author of the bestselling Stephanie Plum series celebrates her birthday this Sunday, so I did some rooting around, and found our most recent interview with her. It’s from 2007, and you can read the full thing here.

As someone who begins to nod off at the thought of making giant, classic outlines (and instead prefers free-range, perhaps dangerously vague stream-of-consciousness explorations), I was intrigued by Evanovich’s more simplified “storyboard” process.

Here’s how to outline like Janet Evanovich—plus a frank, honest example of what some of it looks like, from one of her actual storyboards.

Evanovich: Storyboarding is a little more visual. When I’m plotting out a book, I use a storyboard—I’ll have maybe three lines across on the storyboard and just start working through the plot line. I always know where relationships will go, and how the book is going to end. When I storyboard, they’re just fragments of thoughts. I write in three acts like a movie, so I have my plot points up on the preliminary storyboard. Another board I keep is an action timeline. It’s a way of quickly referring to what happened a couple of scenes ago. The boards cover my office walls.

WD: IT’S MORE SCENE-ORIENTED THAN AN OUTLINE MIGHT BE, THEN?

Evanovich: Exactly. Because I know the relationships, and I already know my characters and how I’m going to reveal my characters to my readers—how I’m going to feed them information about that character. That stuff doesn’t have to be in my outline. What I have to outline is action and plot because I’m not particularly good at that.

Do you outline? How in depth do you go? Share your thoughts in the comments section. I’m building up another dangerously tall stack of review copies at my desk, and will pull the name of one random commenter next week to receive a few cool new writing  books.

Happy Friday.

(Also, some preliminary blog procrastination today has led me to discover how good Evanovich’s website is. Not a bad thing to check out if you’re looking to sharpen or start your own.)

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Like what you read from WD online? Don’t miss an issue in print!

From hardboiled detectives to murderers, leprechauns, spies and even giraffe narrators, when it comes to the diverse and unique entries in our free Your Story contest, the gang’s all here.

If you have a spare moment this weekend for a writing challenge, take five minutes and give it a whirl.

Basically, in every issue we give our readers a chance to get published in Writer’s Digest by running a prompt and asking them to do one of two things in response to it: Write a full short story, or write a one-sentence opener to a short story.

For our March/April 2012 issue, we invited our readers to go the one-sentence route for this writing prompt:

Write the first line to a story incorporating these three words: Cinderella, midnight, and behave.

Want in? Post your entry in the Comments section of this post, and it’ll automatically be entered in the competition.

The rules:

• Your sentence (just one!) must be 25 words or fewer. Entries of 26 words will be DQ’d (even though it’s my lucky number).
• The deadline is April 10, 2012.
• One entry per person, please.
• How it all works: We’ll select the top 10 entries and post them here. In mid-April, readers will vote for their favorites to help rank the winners.
• This is a free writing competition. The prize is publication in WD.
• You can also submit your sentence via the form here.
• Finally, as we say about this publication contest in the magazine: “You can be funny, poignant, witty, etc. It is, after all, your story.”

Good luck! One of the most fun things we get to do around here every issue is read them all, and we appreciate every single word that comes in.

I’ll be back next Friday with my series on vintage discoveries from the WD archives—and some free books. Stay tuned.

(And if you landed here looking for general advice on submitting short fiction to publications, check out my colleague Scott Francis’ excellent post on 10 rules for submitting short stories.)

Happy Friday.

I love articles about being more productive. I always come to them with a hopeful expectation that some gem inside will hold the power to transform my writing time. And usually I’m left feeling disappointed—more than disappointed, actually. Guilty. Because while these articles are great at pointing out things that can be seen as a waste of time, they forget to take into account one important thing: People (yes, even writers!) need downtime. We don’t need to fill every moment with something that’s quantifiably productive. Plus, for writers, the happy truth is that downtime can be productive in all sorts of ways.

Don’t feel pressured to give up things you enjoy—however mundane—to make time to write.

Take TV, for instance. Productivity experts jump straight to this topic almost without fail. Turn it off, they say. Think of all the other things you could be doing instead. Productive things.

They’re right, of course—in theory. Let’s talk about reality. What does yours look like? I, for example, am a working mom. I get up extra early to spend time with my son before we head off to day care and work. My lunch break, if I take one, is a visit to see how he’s doing. After work, we rush home to squeeze in as much time together as possible before, too soon, it’s time to put him to bed. And when he’s asleep and I sink onto the couch next to my husband for the first time all day, I’ve already been going nonstop (quite productively, mind you) for a full 15 hours.

There are lots of things I should do with the hour that follows—things I’ve been meaning and wanting to do, including making time to write. But you know what usually happens? We watch a little TV together. We laugh at a sitcom. We end up starting a conversation about something that happened that day and then realize we have no idea what happened on the show and have to start the DVR all over. We eat ice cream.

And you know what? I like it. We need downtime. Sure, we could be doing other productive things (or spending more “quality” time together), but the truth is (good or bad) that what we both want to do in that moment is something mindless. For some of us, at certain times of the day, that’s what it takes to unwind, and anything else would be forced. I don’t know about you, but that’s not the place my best writing comes from.

If you want to write more often, find the “write time” for you.

I’m a supporter of doing what you want to do. I have been ever since I was a kid. (Think back to what it was like to clench your fists and think, I can’t wait until I’m a grownup so I can do whatever I want to do! Conjure that feeling up—and then go have chocolate chip pancakes for dinner. You know you want to.)

My point is this: You don’t always have to give up things you enjoy—even mundane things, even things that you’re reluctant to admit you take enjoyment in—to make time to write. You don’t have to feel guilty about everything you do that isn’t writing. (And there might be other reasons you enjoy those things that you haven’t considered. You know what there’s lots of on TV? Good writing—dialogue, characters, plots, settings, themes, ideas …)

Does this mean I don’t get any writing done in the evenings? Actually, there’s a period later in the nights that I’m less fond of—when my husband falls asleep the instant his head hits the pillow and I lie there marveling at how he can do that. I often redirect that time to my laptop, even if only 20 or 30 minutes—and a great unintended side effect is that my work-in-progress stays in my mind as I drift off to sleep, so the “boys in the basement,” as Stephen King dubbed his creative subconscious, can work while I rest. And the work I’ve done in these periods is not at all negligible when working toward my weekly word quotas (see my previous post:

Every week, I spelunk into the Writer’s Digest archives to find the wisest, funniest, or downright strangest moments from our 92 years of publication.

Today: A vintage article and quotes from Jack Kerouac (On the Road), who in January 1962 wrote a piece for WD asking, Are Writers Made or Born? (This week would have marked Kerouac’s 90th birthday. And, if you’re an On the Road fan, a new trailer is out for the upcoming film.)

I’ll include a smattering of highlights from the article below.

The question is always a matter of debate among writers, and Kerouac makes some (unsurprisingly) bold statements. What do you think: Are writers born or made?

Happy Friday!

“There can be no major writer without original genius. Artists of genius, like Jackson Pollock, have painted things that have never been seen before.”

“Geniuses can be scintillating and geniuses can be somber, but it’s that inescapable sorrowful depth that shines through—originality.”

“Five thousand university-trained writers could put their hand to a day in June in Dublin in 1904, or one night’s dreams, and never do with it what Joyce did with it: He was simply born to do it. On the other hand, if the five thousand ‘trained’ writers, plus Joyce, all put their hands to a Reader’s Digest-type article about ‘Vacation Hints’ or ‘Homemaker’s Tips,’ even then I think Joyce would stand out because of his inborn originality of language insight.”

“Anybody can write, but not everybody invents new forms of writing. Gertrude Stein invented a new form of writing and her imitators are just ‘talents.’ Hemingway later invented his own form also. The criterion for judging talent or genius is ephemeral, speaking rationally in this world of graphs, but one gets the feeling definitely when a writer of genius amazes him by strokes of force never seen before and yet hauntingly familiar.”

“Genius gives birth, talent delivers. What Rembrandt or Van Gogh saw in the night can never be seen again. Born writers of the future are amazed already at what they’re seeing now, what we’ll all see in time for the first time, and then see imitated many times by made writers.”

“Oftentimes an originator of new language forms is called ‘pretentious’ by jealous talents. But it ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.”

 

For more quotes and wisdoms from other legendary scribes, read our 90-year retrospective here.

WD is also having a giant warehouse sale through March 18. Check out the discounts on books, magazines and other products here.

In anticipation of St. Patrick’s Day, I thought it might be fun to tap into the wit and wisdom of a few famous Irish and Anglo-Irish writers. While March 17 seems like a logical time to celebrate all things Irish, Ireland’s contributions to literature are worth noting anytime. From the Middle Ages to the present, Irish poets, novelists and playwrights (writing in both Irish and English) have deftly matched matters of art and identity with distinctive voice, experimentation and wit.

Maybe in your own explorations as a writer and reader you’ve encountered the drama of the medieval Tain Bo Cuilange sagas, the satire of eighteenth-century author Jonathan Swift, the romance of the Gaelic Revival via William Butler Yeats, or James Joyce’s “stream of consciousness” writings. Or perhaps you’ve read a bit of Maria Edgeworth, Elizabeth Bowen, Eavan Boland or (if you’re a fan of chick lit) Marian Keyes. I could probably add to this list until next St. Patrick’s Day … . For today, I’ve selected these five tidbits of writing advice from famous Irish authors:

Being a Writer:

“The intellect is forced to choose: perfection of the life, or of the work.” –William Butler Yeats

Finding Your Voice:

“Write as you speak.” –Maeve Binchy

Writing Fiction:

“The good end happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.” –Oscar Wilde

Creativity:

“No pen, no ink, no table, no room, no time, no quiet, no inclination.”  –James Joyce

The Genius of James Joyce:

“His writing is not about something. It is the thing itself.”  –Samuel Beckett

Read a Writer’s Digest Interview with Emma Donaghue, Irish author of the bestselling novel Room:

For more writing advice from a contemporary Irish author, check out Writer With a Day Job by Aine Greaney, published by Writer’s Digest Books.

Calling all authors! Perfect plot, characterization, & more w/50-80% savings on @WritersDigest books thru 3/18!

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