Seven pm, the sun is setting. Standing alone in a crowded bookstore café, I look for somewhere to sit. That's when I spot them: Anne Lamott - Author of Bird by Bird, Ray Bradbury - Author of Zen in the Art of writing, and Maria Popova - Author of The Daily Writing Routines of Great Writers. All three writers are sitting together conversing about, what I imagine to be, their individual writing processes. I walk over, take a seat, and jump into their conversation:
Maria: E.B. White: " A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper."
Ray: In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or trigger-tapping.
Kylie: I struggle with putting new ideas on a page. How do you commence to begin a new story?
Ray: You stumble into it mostly. You don't know what you're doing and suddenly it's done. You don't set out to reform a certain type of writing.
Anne: Often when you sit down to write, what you have in mind is an autobiographical novel about your childhood or a play about the immigrant experience, or a history of- oh, say- say women. But this is like trying to scale a glacier.
Ray: In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are.
Kylie: In other wards you are saying short goals and let your mind wander? How do you begin your actual process?
Anne: First I try to breathe, because I'm either sitting there panting like a lapdog or I'm unintentionally making slow asthmatic death rattles.
Maria: Jack Kerouac describes his rituals and superstitions in 1968: "I had a ritual once of lighting a candle and writing by its light and blowing it out when I was done for the night... Also kneeling and praying before starting..."
Anne: Say to yourself in the kindest possible way, Look, honey, all we're going to do for now is write a description of the river at sunrise, or the young child swimming in the pool at the club, or the first time the man sees the woman he will marry. That is all we are going to do for now. But we are going to finish this one short assignment.
Kylie: Write one paragraph at a time, I think I can handle that. Maybe my book will get finished after all. Maria what did Joan Didion say about her writing process during your interview?
Maria: Didion said "I need an hour alone before diner, with a drink, to go over what I've done that day. I can't do it late in the afternoon because I'm too close to it."
By this time the crowd has dispersed, all but our table of lonely writers. The conversation continues late into the night.
Maria: E.B. White: " A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper."
Ray: In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or trigger-tapping.
Kylie: I struggle with putting new ideas on a page. How do you commence to begin a new story?
Ray: You stumble into it mostly. You don't know what you're doing and suddenly it's done. You don't set out to reform a certain type of writing.
Anne: Often when you sit down to write, what you have in mind is an autobiographical novel about your childhood or a play about the immigrant experience, or a history of- oh, say- say women. But this is like trying to scale a glacier.
Ray: In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are.
Kylie: In other wards you are saying short goals and let your mind wander? How do you begin your actual process?
Anne: First I try to breathe, because I'm either sitting there panting like a lapdog or I'm unintentionally making slow asthmatic death rattles.
Maria: Jack Kerouac describes his rituals and superstitions in 1968: "I had a ritual once of lighting a candle and writing by its light and blowing it out when I was done for the night... Also kneeling and praying before starting..."
Anne: Say to yourself in the kindest possible way, Look, honey, all we're going to do for now is write a description of the river at sunrise, or the young child swimming in the pool at the club, or the first time the man sees the woman he will marry. That is all we are going to do for now. But we are going to finish this one short assignment.
Kylie: Write one paragraph at a time, I think I can handle that. Maybe my book will get finished after all. Maria what did Joan Didion say about her writing process during your interview?
Maria: Didion said "I need an hour alone before diner, with a drink, to go over what I've done that day. I can't do it late in the afternoon because I'm too close to it."
By this time the crowd has dispersed, all but our table of lonely writers. The conversation continues late into the night.