“I published only in academic journals in philosophy until I was in my 40s, but I had been writing fiction and poetry my whole adult life - without ever once trying to publish it, and rarely letting anyone read it.” WritingTryingPhilosophyWholeFictionAdultsAcademicJournalPublishWriting Fiction Author:Cheryl Mendelson
“As a journalist, I would talk to writers, directors, creative people, and discover that for an awful lot of them, the moment they became successful, that was all they were allowed to do. So you end up talking to the bestselling science-fiction author who wrote a historical-fiction novel that everybody loved, but no one would publish.” PeopleEndsMomentsFictionTalkingNovelCreativeSuccessfulDirectorsScience FictionHistoricalAwfulJournalistHistorical FictionPublishCreative PeopleFiction Novels Author:Neil Gaiman
“It was the ponderous battering ram of his novels that opened the way through the genteel reticences of American nineteenth-century fiction. . . Without [Theodore] Dreiser's treading out a path for naturalism none of us would have had a chance to publish.” WayChanceFictionNovelPathCenturyPublishNineteenth CenturyNaturalismRamsTreadingTheodoreReticenceBattering Book:The Best Times: An Informal Memoir Source: The Best Times: An Informal Memoir
“I don't think "I'm going to publish this as fiction" but I think "I'm going to tell this story to a friend" and then I start telling the story in my mind as the experience transpires as a way of pretending it's already happened.” ThinkingWayMindStoriesFictionHappenedPretendingPublish Author:Ben Lerner
“Read non-fiction. History, biology, entomology, mineralogy, paleontology. Get a bodyguard and do fieldwork. Find your inner fish. Don't publish too soon. Not before you have read Thomas Mann in any case. Learn by copying, sentence by sentence some of the masters. Copy Coetzee's or Sebald's sentences and see what happens to your story. Consider creative non-fiction if you want to stay in South Africa. It might be the way to go. Never neglect back and hamstring exercises, otherwise you won't be able to write your novel. One needs one's buttocks to think.” IfsThinkingWayWantNeedsWritingStoriesMightHappensAbleFictionCasesNovelCreativeMastersExerciseSouthFishesSentencesBiologyNeglectCopiesSouth AfricaPublishNon FictionCopyingBodyguardPaleontologyButtocksFieldworkHamstringsCoetzee Author:Marlene van Niekerk