On Writing

Your ambition is not to write the Great American Novel. Your ambition is to finish the damn book. This is a lesson I’ve had to learn over and over again. It’s true of so many things in our lives. Because we’re afraid of failing, sometimes we turn away from it and don’t do it at all. As much as it would have hurt to write a book that everyone hated,... See more

Lamott writes, “The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later.”

So don’t study and grind away too much, for that makes one sterile. Enjoy yourself too much rather than too little, and don’t take art and love too seriously—there is very little one can do about it, it is mainly a question of temperament.

[I]n order to write a book, do a deed, paint a picture with some life in it, one has to be alive oneself. And so, unless you never want to progress, study is a matter of very secondary importance for you. Enjoy yourself as much as you can, have as many diversions as you can, and remember that what people demand in art nowadays is something very muc... See more

‘I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved, all the cities I have visited.’

She would wake at 2am and write until 6am before starting her shift, then she would go to a cafe when it finished at lunchtime and write all afternoon.

“That is part of the beauty of all literature . You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.”

“I only hope it is some good. I have very grave doubts sometimes. I don’t want this to seem hurried. It must be just as slow and measured as the rest but I am sure of one thing — it isn’t the great book I had hoped it would be. It’s just a run-of-the-mill book. And the awful thing is that it is absolutely the best I can do. Now to work on it.”— Joh... See more