BOOKS

 
A: Write a LOT. Write all the time. Write long letters to friends as often as you can, because this is the basis of storytelling—communicating a narrative in an intimate way to a single other person.
 
Read a LOT. Read all the classics, but not because they're "great." Decide for yourself how good they are, based on increasing experience of world literature. Many of the classics are not good books: they're boring, for example, which is never a good thing. Writing is entertainment, first and foremost. Many obscure books that nobody is hyping are very much worth reading. Find them! And remember, if you like a book, IT'S GOOD! Your tastes may change, but personal literary taste is your guide. Develop it.
 
Do a LOT of bad writing. Resign yourself to the fact you'll do a lot of it (writing that's pretentious, clumsy, stilted, etc.) before you develop any real fluidity, just like a diver who has to work so long and hard to make it effortless and natural.
 
Don't expect to become a "big success." This is not the point of being an artist—art and money will always be very uneasy bedfellows. There are many, many talented artists out there, in all fields. Many of these are relatively obscure. To quote a musician I once talked to, "The trick is not trying to 'make it' but instead to just keep doing your art and making it available."  Go at it, hammer and tongs. Leave behind something worthwhile.

Q: Why did you become a writer?
 
A: I became a writer because I had to. When I was in my early twenties, writing grabbed hold of me as something I just had to do, whatever the personal cost. As the great American writer William S. Burroughs said, "The things I had to do, to do the things I had to do."
 
I think most authentic artists would say the same: it's a duty, though you can't explain why, except to say that there is something irreplaceable about a narrative written by an individual in a certain time and place in the world, that lets you know what it was like to see through those eyes.  

by GL | 2/1/2016