How should one celebrate a literary success?

Dear Literary Ladies,
I just got a taste of sweet success—all my work and efforts seem to be coming to some fruition. I don’t want to boast or brag, but I admit I want to shout my news from the rooftops! I won’t, of course; but how should a writer savor success once it arrives?

I believe that success and the enjoyment of it are a very personal and a very private thing, like saying one’s prayers or making love. The outward trappings are embarrassing, and spoil achievement. There come moments in the life of every artist, whether [s]he be a writer, actor, painter, composer, when [s]he stands back, detached, and looks at what [s]he has done a split second, perhaps, after [s]he has done it. That is the supreme moment. It cannot be repeated. The last sentence of a chapter, the final brush stroke, a bar in music, a look in the eye and the inflection of an actor’s voice, these are the things that well up from within and turn the craftsman into an artist, so that, alone in [her] study, in his studio, on the stage . . . [s]he has this blessed spark of intuition. “This is good. This is what I meant.”

The feeling has gone into the next breath, and the craftsman takes over again. Back to routine, and the job for which [s]he is trained. The pages that must link the story together, dull but necessary, the background behind the sitter’s head; the scenes in the actor’s part which come of necessity as an anticlimax; all these are measures of discipline the artist puts upon [her]self and understands, and [s]he works at them day after day, week after week. The moment of triumph is a thing apart. It is the secret nourishment. The raison d’etre.

—Daphne Du Maurier, “My Name in Lights” (essay), 1958

How can I write, when I have no privacy?

Dear Literary Ladies,
I want to write, but my circumstances are less than ideal. My kids run around the house, and someone is always interrupting me. I have no private space, let alone what Virginia Woolf called "a room of one's own." Were any of you in the same position, and if so, how did you do it?

During long years of struggling with poverty and sickness, and a hot, debilitating climate, my children grew up around me. The nursery and the kitchen were my principal fields of labor. Some of my friends, pitying my trials, copied and sent a number of little sketches from my pen to certain liberally paying “Annuals” with my name. With the first money that I earned in this way I bought a feather-bed! for as I had married into poverty and without a dowry, and as my husband had only a large library of books and a great deal of learning, the bed and pillows were thought the most profitable investment. After this I though that I had discovered the philosopher’s stone.

So when a new carpet or mattress was going to be needed, or when, at the close of the year, it began to be evident that my family accounts “wouldn’t add up,” then I used to say to my faithful friend and factotum Anna, who shared all my joys and sorrows, “Now, if you will keep the babies and attend to the things in the house for one day, I’ll write a piece, and then we shall be out of the scrape.” So I became an author, —very modest at first, I do assure you, and remonstrating very seriously with the friends who had thought it best to put my name to the pieces by way of getting up a reputation . . .

—Harriet Beecher Stowe, from a letter, 1853

A note from Nava: Harriet Beecher Stowe had seven children, and was the ultimate working mother—she was compelled to use her pen to augment her husband's meager salary, writing sketches, poems, essays—anything that would yield quick payment. All the while, for many years, she burned to tell the story that scholars agree aided the cause of abolition tremendously—Uncle Tom's Cabin, and finally did so at age 39.

How does getting published change your outlook?

Dear Literary Ladies,
How does becoming a published author change your outlook? Do you become more self-conscious or self-aware? Are you constantly on the alert for ideas and dialogue that you might work into your next piece of writing?

I begin already to weigh my words and sentences more than I did, and am looking about for a sentiment, an illustration or a metaphor in every corner of the room. Could my Ideas flow as fast as the rain in the Store closet it would be charming.

—Jane Austen, from a letter to her sister, Cassandra, 1809

Should making money be the incentive to write?

Dear Literary Ladies,
I write and write, sometimes getting compensated for my efforts, but often not. I just feel this incredible urge to keep putting words to paper, whether I get paid or not. Am I being foolish or naive? Should I try to do the kind of writing that might bring in a few bucks?

As for me, when money comes, I say, “So much the better,” without excitement, and if it does not come, I say, “So much the worse,” without any chagrin. Money not being the aim, ought not to be the preoccupation. It is, moreover, not the real proof of success, since so many vapid or poor things make money.

— George Sand, from a letter to Gustave Flaubert,
ca. 1868

Can success be as daunting as failure?

Dear Literary Ladies,
Sometimes I wonder what I’m more afraid of—failure, or success? In its own way, the prospect of success seems daunting. And I know I’m not alone. Did any of you find the idea of actually succeeding as scary and incomprehensible as I do?

I never expected any sort of success with [To Kill a] Mockingbird. I didn't expect the book to sell in the first place. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of reviewers, but at the same time I sort of hoped that maybe someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected.

—Harper Lee, from a 1964 interview

Why am I afraid to take risks with my writing?

Dear Literary Ladies,
I want to go in a new direction with my writing. But I'm afraid I'll fail and feel foolish. Can you give me any encouragement that will help me take some risks with my work and get out of my comfort zone?

Risk is essential. It’s scary. Every time I sit down and start the first page of a novel I am risking failure. We are encouraged in this world not to fail. College students are often encouraged to take the courses they are going to get A’s in so that they can get that nice grant to graduate school. And they are discouraged from taking the courses they may not get a good grade in but which fascinates them nevertheless. I think that is a bad thing that the world has done to us.

We are encouraged only to do that which we can be successful in. But things are accomplished only by our risk of failure. Writers will never do anything beyond the first thing unless they risk growing.

—Madeleine L’Engle, from Madeleine L’Engle Herself, 2001

How do I find time to write?

A Note from Nava: I'm reprising my very first entry for this blog, as not too many people got to see it, and because I myself need to follow Edna Ferber's advice after all the entertainments and activities of summer. I've started to say, sorry— I really need to stick to a 9 to 5 schedule. Thanks, Edna!

Dear Literary Ladies,
I would dearly love to call myself a professional writer, but I’m so easily distracted. After the kids go to school, it’s off to work, the gym, and endless errands. On weekends, I entertain family or visit with friends. In the midst of all this, I can’t seem to find time to write. How can I fit everything in?

To be a professional writer one must be prepared to give up almost everything except living. Amateur writers are not included in this rule (I loathe loud-talking amateurs of any walk of life. An amateur is an apprentice and should conduct himself as such, keeping his mouth shut and learning his craft). The first lesson to be learned by a writer is to be able to say, “Thanks so much. I’d love to, but I can’t. I’m working.”

—Edna Ferber, A Kind of Magic, 1963

How can a writer balance solitude and camaraderie?

Dear Literary Ladies,
How can a writer balance the need for quiet and solitude, with the desire for camaraderie? When I’m alone, working, I feel the need for feedback; and when I’m among colleagues, talking about my work, I feel I’m seeking too much outside validation.

If you don’t keep and guard and mature your force and above all, have time and quiet to perfect your work, you will be writing things not much better than you did five years ago. You must find a quiet place near the best companions (not those who admire and wonder at everything one does, but those who know the good things with delight!).

You need reassurance—every artist does—but you need still more to feel “responsible for the state of your conscience” (your literary conscience, we can just now limit that quotation to), and you need to dream your dreams and go on to new and more shining ideals, to be aware of “the gleam” and to follow it; your vivid, exciting companionship in the office must not be your audience, you must find your own quiet center of life, and write from that to the world that holds offices, and all society, all Bohemia; the city, the country--in short, you must write to the human heart, the great consciousness that all humanity goes to make up.

Otherwise what might be strength in a writer is only crudeness, and what might be insight is only observation; sentiment falls to sentimentality—you can write about life, but never write life itself. And to write and work on this level, we must live on it—we must at least recognize it and defer to it at every step. We must be ourselves, but we must be our best selves.

—Sarah Orne Jewett, in a letter to Willa Cather, ca. 1909

How can I write amidst the chaos of parenting?

Dear Literary Ladies,
I’m having trouble juggling parenting and writing. I can’t live without writing, but every day brings a thousand interruptions, and I’m just not getting anything done. How can I make this a more positive experience, and feel less frustrated? Did any of you manage to raise a few kids and create a body of work simultaneously, and if so, how did you do it?

Perhaps the most useful thing about being a writer of fiction is that nothing is ever wasted; all experience is good for something; you tend to see everything as a potential structure of words. One of my daughters made this abruptly clear to me when she came not long ago into the kitchen where I was trying to get the door of our terrible old refrigerator open; it always stuck when the weather was wet, and one of the delights of a cold rainy day was opening the refrigerator door. My daughter watched me wrestle with it for a minute and then she said that I was foolish to bang on the refrigerator door like that; why not us magic to open it? I thought about this. I poured myself another cup of coffee and lighted a cigarette and sat down for a while and thought about it; and decided that she was right. I left the refrigerator where it was and went in to my typewriter and wrote a story about not being able to open the refrigerator door and getting the children to open it with magic. When a magazine bought the story I bought a new refrigerator . . .

It is much easier, I find, to write a story than to cope competently with the millions of daily trials and irritations that turn up in an ordinary house, and it helps a good deal—particularly with children around—if you can see them through a flattering veil of fiction. It has always been a comfort to me to make stories out of things that happen, things like moving , and kittens, and Christmas concerts at the grade school, and broken bicycles; it is easier, as Sally said, to magic the refrigerator than it is to wrench at the door.

—Shirley Jackson, Come Along with Me, ©1948

What should my attitude be toward reviews?

Dear Literary Ladies,
My first novel is finally coming out, and I’m thrilled! But I’m also concerned about how to handle reviews from critics as well as readers. It’s hard to ignore reviews these days, with everything on the web and in one’s face 24/7. Any words of wisdom before my book hits the shelves?

If one has sought the publicity of print, and sold one’s wares in the open market, one has sold to the purchasers the right to think what they choose about one’s books; and the novelist’s best safeguard is to put out of his mind the quality of praise or blame bestowed on [her] by reviewers and readers, and to write only for that dispassionate and ironic critic who dwells within the breast.

—Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance, 1934

How can one persevere when writing pays so poorly?

Dear Literary Ladies,
I work so hard at my writing, putting in an inordinate amount time and effort. For all that, the rewards are so meager. Adding up the hours I put into my work (which I’m not even sure is more than mediocre), I would be making much less than minimum wage! My family thinks I should pack it in. What can you advise to help me persevere in a pursuit that’s so poorly compensated?

How can we know if we work hard now and develop ourselves we will be more than mediocre? Isn’t this the world’s revenge on us for sticking our neck out? We can never know until we’ve worked, written . . . Weren’t the mothers and businessmen right after all? Shouldn’t we have avoided these disquieting questions and taken steady jobs and secured a good future for the kiddies?

Not unless we want to be bitter all our lives. Not unless we want to feel wistfully: What a writer I might have been, if only. If only I’d had the guts to try and work and shoulder the insecurity all that trial and work implied.

Writing is a religious act: it is an ordering, a reforming, a relearning and reloving of people and the world as they are and as they might be. A shaping which does not pass away like a day of typing or a day of teaching. The writing lasts: it goes about on its own in the world. People read it: react to it as to a person, a philosophy, a religion, a flower: they like it, or do not. It helps them, or it does not. It feels to intensify living: you give more, probe, ask, look, learn, and shape this: you get more: monsters, answers, color and form, knowledge. You do it for itself first. If it brings in money, how nice. You do not do it first for money. Money isn’t why you sit down at the typewriter. Not that you don’t want it. It is only too lovely when a profession pays for your bread and butter. With writing, it is maybe, maybe-not. How to live with such insecurity. With what is worst, the occasional lack or loss of faith in the writing itself? How to live with these things?

The worst thing, worse than all of them, would be to live with not writing.

—Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), The Journals of Sylvia Plath, ©1982

Isn't there an easy road to writing success?

Dear Literary Ladies,
Like most writers, I want to be published, and truth be told, I’d love to be successful. But I’ve heard so many stories of long years of toil, false starts, and tons of rejection. Isn’t there an easier way? I’d prefer to become an overnight success, earn fame and fortune, and avoid all the struggle.

I can only say to you as I do to the many young writers who ask for advice—There is no easy road to successful authorship; it has to be earned by long and patient labor, many disappointments, uncertainties and trials. Success is often a lucky accident, coming to those who may not deserve it, while others who do have to wait & hope till they have earned it. This is the best sort and the most enduring.

I worked for twenty years poorly paid, little known, and quite without any ambition but to eke out a living, as I chose to support myself and begin to do it at sixteen . . . “Little Women” was written when I was ill, and to prove that I could not write books for girls. The publisher thought it flat, so did I, and neither hoped much for or from it. We found out our mistake, and since then, though I do not enjoy writing “moral tales” for the young, I do it because it pays well.

But the success I value most was making my dear mother happy in her last years & taking care of my family. The rest soon grows wearisome & seems very poor beside the comfort of being an early Providence to those we love.

—Louisa May Alcott, from a letter, 1878