{"id":123050,"date":"2018-03-19T13:02:17","date_gmt":"2018-03-19T17:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=123050"},"modified":"2018-03-19T17:46:20","modified_gmt":"2018-03-19T21:46:20","slug":"advice-from-12-famous-authors-on-writers-block","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/19\/advice-from-12-famous-authors-on-writers-block\/","title":{"rendered":"On Writer\u2019s Block: Advice from Twelve Writers"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Our Writers at Work series, which spans sixty-five years of interviews with nearly four hundred writers, offers no shortage of advice. Should this multitude seem daunting, fear not! The editors of\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review\u00a0have combed through the series and sorted the best tips and tricks into tidy categories meant to guide you through the authorial landscape.<\/em><\/p>\n

In\u00a0<\/em>The Writer\u2019s Chapbook: A Compendium of Fact, Opinion, Wit, and Advice from \u201cThe Paris Review\u201d Interviews<\/a>, readers can learn how Eudora Welty and E. B. White revised their prose, what Vladimir Nabokov and Dorothy Parker thought about their editors, how Elena Ferrante and Eileen Myles face success (and failure), how Kurt Vonnegut and Truman Capote dealt with their critics, and much more.\u00a0<\/em>The Writer\u2019s Chapbook<\/a>\u00a0has it all, from tips on how to begin a work to advice for (and against) writing under the influence.<\/em><\/p>\n

Below is an excerpt from the chapter \u201cDo You Ever Get Writer\u2019s Block?\u201d If you\u2019re hungry for more, you can preorder <\/a><\/em>The Writer\u2019s Chapbook<\/a> today for $15<\/a>. But hurry, this discounted price is only available for a limited time.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can always write something. You write limericks. You write a love letter. You do something to get you in the habit of writing again, to bring back the desire.\u201d \u2014Erskine Caldwell<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIf I get frustrated, I\u2019ll go eat something, I\u2019ll go open another Diet Coke, I\u2019ll go to the barn, I\u2019ll distract myself, and then the parts in my brain that were working click and I get an idea. I read an article about how to learn to play a musical instrument. You practice, practice, practice on Friday, then you walk away. And then when you sit down on Saturday, you\u2019re better. Not only because of all the practice, but also because of the walking away. I\u2019m a firm believer in walking away.\u201d \u2014Jane Smiley<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI have three rules to live by. One, get your work done. If that doesn\u2019t work, shut up and drink your gin. And when all else fails, run like hell!\u201d \u2014Ray Bradbury<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI would look at the words on the page\u2014still do\u2014and think, This is so naive. This is so stupid. Who\u2019s going to want to read this? How will I ever get another sentence out? Of course, every writer is vulnerable on that score. To the degree that you become a writer whose life is richly experienced through the work, you are, I believe, less tormented by that particular demon, and book by book the work will find itself deepening, paving the way for the very best a writer is capable of.\u201d \u2014Vivian Gornick<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThey tell me that success is a terrible test of people. Thank God I\u2019ve never had to undergo it. But nationwide success with money pouring in will kill lots of writers. Ross Lockridge, who wrote\u00a0Raintree County<\/em>, and Thomas Heggen, the author of that novel about a ship, Mister Roberts<\/em>, both committed suicide. It was always said that Gilbert Seldes\u2019s review of\u00a0The Great Gatsby<\/em>, which was ecstatic, probably damaged Scott Fitzgerald. The trouble is that after something like that, every work has to count \u2026 every word has to live up to this marvelous praise. The poor author gets stage fright.\u201d \u2014Malcolm Cowley<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe funny thing is that you get to a certain point and you can\u2019t quit. Because I always worried: If you quit, you\u2019ll quit again. The only way out was to go forward, to learn your way and write your way out of it.\u201d \u2014John McPhee<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cThen, of course, [Carson McCullers] was terribly affected by not being able to write. It was a murderous thing, a deathblow, that block. She said she just didn\u2019t have anything to write. And really, it was as though she had never written. This happens to writers when there are dead spells. We die sometimes. And it\u2019s as though we\u2019re in a tomb; it\u2019s a death. That\u2019s what we all fear, and that\u2019s why so many of us become alcoholics or suicides or insane\u2014or just no-good philanderers. It\u2019s amazing that we survive, though I think survival in some cases is kind of misgiven and it\u2019s a bore. It was written recently about Saul Bellow that one of the best things about him is that he survived, he didn\u2019t become an alcoholic, he didn\u2019t go mad and so forth. And that the true heroism of him lies simply in his endurance. That\u2019s the way we look at artists in America.\u201d \u2014William Goyen<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder, when a writer\u2019s blocked and doesn\u2019t have any resources to pull himself out of it, why doesn\u2019t he jump in his car and drive around the USA? I went last winter for seven thousand miles and it was lovely. Inexpensive, too. A lot of places\u2014even good motels\u2014are only twenty-five dollars in the winter, and food isn\u2019t much because there aren\u2019t any good restaurants. You pack along a bunch of stomach remedies and a bottle of whiskey.\u201d \u2014Jim Harrison<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m definitely more a cabinetmaker than a tormented artist. Not that writing comes easy. I don\u2019t know about cabinetmakers, but I often get stuck. Then I get sleepy and have to lie down. Or I make myself leave the house\u2014walking sometimes produces a solution. The problem is usually one of logic or point of view.\u201d \u2014Janet Malcolm<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is usual that the moment you write for publication\u2014I mean one of course\u2014one stiffens in exactly the same way one does when one is being photographed. The simplest way to overcome this is to write it to someone, like me. Write it as a letter aimed at one person. This removes the vague terror of addressing the large and faceless audience and it also, you will find, will give a sense of freedom and a lack of self-consciousness.\u201d \u2014John Steinbeck<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve gone through periods of not writing anything, but I\u2019ve never felt\u00a0blocked. I think it\u2019s just a lazy-thinking kind of clich\u00e9, this idea of writer\u2019s block. In a very obviously lavatorial way, it suggests that you\u2019ve got something in you and you can\u2019t get it out because of the blockage. So you\u2019re straining away, and then it becomes more and more blocked. Whereas I\u2019ve gone through phases where I just haven\u2019t had anything to say. That\u2019s made life a bit boring because, well, I\u2019ve always had plenty of time, and without writing the days are pretty long\u2014though as you get older they speed past pretty quickly anyway. And I\u2019ve gone through phases where I\u2019ve\u00a0 dreaded\u00a0 the idea of writing. Writer\u2019s dread. Now there\u2019s a subject for an essay\u2014if one could face writing it. Another thing I am persuaded of is that I\u2019ll run out of fiction to write long before I give up writing the other stuff\u2014even though that means we\u2019ve come full circle and I am now admitting a distinction I began by denying. Maybe we should start over?\u201d \u2014Geoff Dyer<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201c[What does it sound like when you get stuck?<\/em>] Fuck. Shit. Don\u2019t. Fuck. You dumb bitch\u2014who ever told you that you could write? That\u2019s what it sounds like.\u201d \u2014Mary Karr<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Our Writers at Work series, which spans sixty-five years of interviews with nearly four hundred writers, offers no shortage of advice. Should this multitude seem daunting, fear not! The editors of\u00a0The Paris Review\u00a0have combed through the series and sorted the best tips and tricks into tidy categories meant to guide you through the authorial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30058],"tags":[57,33414,689,12926,1761,9790,2084,42,1054,8625,5151,7559,5927,16524,5029,33413,3756,33415,12052,1297,10113,75],"class_list":["post-123050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-writing","tag-advice","tag-and-advice-from-the-paris-reviews-interviews","tag-craft","tag-erskine-caldwell","tag-geoff-dyer","tag-inspiration","tag-jane-smiley","tag-janet-malcolm","tag-jim-harrison","tag-john-mcphee","tag-john-steinbeck","tag-malcolm-cowley","tag-mary-karr","tag-opinion","tag-ray-bradbury","tag-the-writers-chapbook-a-compendium-of-fact","tag-vivian-gornick","tag-william-goyen","tag-wit","tag-writers-block","tag-writers-at-work","tag-writing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOn Writer\u2019s Block: Advice From Twelve Writers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Advice on dealing with writer\u2019s block, from Mary Karr, Geoff Dyer, John Steinbeck, Janet Malcolm, William Goyen, Jim Harrison, John McPhee, Vivian Gornick, Ray Bradbury, Jane Smiley, and Erskine Caldwell.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/19\/advice-from-12-famous-authors-on-writers-block\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On Writer\u2019s Block: Advice from Twelve Writers by The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"March 19, 2018 \u2013   Our Writers at Work series, which spans sixty-five years of interviews with nearly four hundred writers, offers no shortage of advice. 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