Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘the writing life’

Shop Talk |

How to Steal Like an Artist

by Celeste Ng

Writer Austin Kleon offers this witty, yet sincere bit of advice on the writing life: “How to Steal Like an Artist (and 9 Other Things Nobody Told Me).” An excerpt: Your job is to collect ideas. The best way to collect ideas is to read. Read, read, read, read, read. Read the newspaper. Read the weather. Read the signs on the road. Read the faces of strangers. The more you read, the more you can choose to be influenced by. Identify one writer you really love. Find everything they’ve ever written. Then find out what they read. And read all […]


Shop Talk |

The ten-year story

by Celeste Ng

How long would you work on a piece of fiction? We’ve talked before about the ten-year novel, and FWR contributor Margaret Dean shared her story of the “long hard slog” from MA thesis to published book. But okay, those are novels. How long would you work on a single story? The Grub Daily, which was our Thursday Morning Candy a couple weeks ago, recently featured this essay by Amin Ahmad in which he describes working on a story for a full decade: Had it really taken me eight years to write it? Thinking back, I realized that it had actually […]


Shop Talk |

Flipbook: "The Work of Writing"

by Celeste Ng

Every few weeks, we launch a new Fiction Writers Review “Flipbook.” During the past two and a half years, we’ve featured more than 50 interviews with authors established and emerging. They’ve had such valuable insights into the writing life—from thoughts on process and craft to ideas about community and influence—that we wanted to find a way to further these conversations within our community. Each Flipbook highlights some of the very best of the conversations on our site, centered around a particular topic. Our latest Flipbook is now up on the FWR Facebook page, with an exclusive slide right here on […]


Shop Talk |

When to kill a novel? Before it kills you.

by Celeste Ng

In the New York Times, Dan Kois takes a peek into the abandoned novels of famous writers. Evelyn Waugh, Nicolai Gogol, Harper Lee, Truman Capote, and many more all scrapped novels. So if there’s a novel slowly decaying under your bed, take heart. You’re in good company—and possibly wise: “A book itself threatens to kill its author repeatedly during its composition,” Michael Chabon writes in the margins of his unfinished novel “Fountain City” — a novel, he adds, that he could feel “erasing me, breaking me down, burying me alive, drowning me, kicking me down the stairs.” And so Chabon […]


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Spider-Man, and killing your darlings

by Celeste Ng

Last week, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark fired its director, Julie Taymor. Already the most expensive musical in Broadway history, Spider-Man has been universally panned by critics—and it hasn’t even officially opened yet. The show’s decision to let Taymor go was apparently in part due to her refusal to alter the script, even when everyone around her agreed it wasn’t working. Reports the New York Times: According to four of her colleagues, Ms. Taymor boxed herself into a corner with the producers in the last few weeks by rebuffing their requests to allow outsiders to make changes to the show. […]


Essays |

Where Are We Going Next? A Conversation about Creative Writing Pedagogy (Pt. 2)

In Part II of “Where Are we Going Next?” Day, Leahy and Vanderslice discuss the rise of assessment, what’s really going on in creative writing classrooms, ways to respond to student work, incorporating digital media, and adapting the workshop for the 21st century. They also explore the importance of what writer Dinty Moore calls “literary citizenship” – the idea that individual literary pursuits thrive when combined with a spirit of community, generosity and mentorship.


Essays |

Where Are We Going Next? A Conversation about Creative Writing Pedagogy (Pt. 1)

Who’s afraid of big, bad pedagogy? Relax. In part one of a lively, insightful discussion about the practice and art of teaching creative writing, Cathy Day, Anna Leahy and Stephanie Vanderslice get down to brass tacks. The three professors articulate “what we do and how we do it,” and how to do it–teaching–better. So dive in; once you get past your jargon phobia, you’ll discover that good practice and theory are downright invigorating–and elemental–for both sides of the classroom.


Essays |

The ReCorrections: Part II

In the second part of his essay, Scott F. Parker discusses The Corrections as a key to Franzen’s thoughts on commerce and art, and how this tension led to the controversy surrounding the Oprah Book Club. Parker argues that the deep connection the reader forges with the Lamberts is precisely because of their abiding flaws and loneliness, because Franzen reveals how their struggles are our own.


Essays |

The ReCorrections: Part I

Nearly a decade after publication, Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections still looms large in American fiction. The novel, and the controversy surrounding it, have influenced the way we think about issues of family, identity, art, commerce, and the role of the writer. In Part I of “The ReCorrections” Scott F. Parker reveals the impact the book had on him as a reader and why he believes “the mood of The Corrections trumps its plot.” Look for Part II tomorrow.


Shop Talk |

Help during "The Long Haul"

by Celeste Ng

So maybe Tuesday’s post on the 10-year novel got you down. Here’s some encouragement: lit site The Rumpus is introducing a new occasional column, “The Long Haul,” featuring writers reflecting on the (long-term) writing life. Or, as the editors put it: Whether you’re a literary wunderkind whose first book was a bestseller, or one of the thousands of writers who have to claw their way to a sustainable career, the writing life requires patience and resilience, a commitment to faithfully staying the course though the course sometimes offers little encouragement or reward. And yet we do it; we pass up […]




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