Making a Literary Life
Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
As Carolyn See says, writing guides are like preachers on Sunday—there may be a lot of them, but you can’t have too many, and there’s always an audience of the faithful. And while Making a Literary Life is ostensibly a book that teaches you how to write, it really teaches you how to make your interior life into your exterior life, how to find and join that community of like-minded souls you’re sure is out there somewhere.
Carolyn See distills a lifetime of experience as novelist, memoirist, critic, and creative-writing professor into this marvelously engaging how-to book. Partly the nuts and bolts of writing (plot, point of view, character, voice) and partly an inspirational guide to living the life you dream of, Making a Literary Life takes you from the decision to “become” a writer to three months after the publication of your first book. A combination of writing and life strategies (do not tell everyone around you how you yearn to be a writer; send a “charming note” to someone you admire in the industry five days a week, every week, for the rest of your life; find the perfect characters right in front of you), Making a Literary Life is for people not usually considered part of the literary loop: the non–East Coasters, the secret scribblers.
With sagacity, a magical sense of humor, and an abiding belief in the possibilities offered to “ordinary” people living “ordinary” lives, Carolyn See has summed up her life’s work in a book so beguiling, irreverent, and giddily inspiring that you won’t even realize it’s changing your life until it already has.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Novelist and memoirist See (The Handyman; Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America) offers a how-to guide for the wannabe writer who can take the time to "write 1,000 words" per day. Viewing writing as a lifestyle as well as a vocation plays to See's strengths as a storyteller: her advice is salted with anecdotes she's picked up in years as the head of a literary household (her daughters are also writers) and as a teacher of university creative-writing classes. Starting at the beginning, she advises neophytes not to tell anyone about their aspirations, as "that bores people to death." Later she suggests sending a handwritten note of praise ("charming notes," she calls them) to someone admired in the literary world each day, five days a week for the rest of your life. Her advice is practical and folksy, and much of it wouldn't be out of place in an upscale women's magazine. The approach is comprehensive: aspirants are encouraged to "pretend" to be a writer, "make rejection a process," set up a travel account for that first trip to New York and deduct part of the cost of their clothing from their taxes as a "costume" expense. Practical chapters on "Character," "Plot," "Geography, Time, and Space" and "Building a Scene" are a little thin, but generally sound. Though not for the experienced writer, this is an easy-to-read beginner's guide, long on chat but somewhat short on technique. FYI:See makes much of the importance ofPublishers Weekly, which we appreciate, but we don't endorse her suggestion to fabricate a publicist to get our attention.
