excerpts from A LONG GAME Notes on Writing Fiction by Elizabeth McCracken

 

"I'll show them." is a solider jumping off point than, "I hope I prove myself."

We're all dogs.  What works for an Australian Shepherd would kill a Corgi.

"This book will be different" I think of every book.  "This novel will be the one I write in one or two drafts."  "This will be the short story where I understand the characters from the start" ... There are some lessons we must never learn.

I don't like people and I don't like fun...I know longer think that an article of clothing might change my life.

There are plenty of talents I'd like to have...but I am fine not doing any of these things...Would I trade writing for...? Of course not...I save that longing for my fiction.

To do anything, to enjoy and improve, you have to have the stomach for failure.

Writing is weight lifting...To get stronger, you must always lift a weight that is a little uncomfortable.

The most efficient way is rarely a straight line.

If you have a sneaking suspicion you're not getting some aspect of your novel right...tell yourself you'll fix it in the next draft. (in other words, don't get bogged down here.  Stay in the flow and return to THIS later.)

Nobody needs to be trained to suffer.  You need to learn how to dare. Rejection will still crush you but at least it will be for work you believe in.

If you are worried about what will happen, dive into work.  If you wonder what it's all for, work.

Lose as quickly as you can the habit of comparison.  Decide that you are in a category of one.

It's difficult to not dream when you send work into the world, but try not to dream quantitatively.

The only thing to do - ever - is write the next book.

There is no next big thing, or, if there is, you wouldn't want to be it.  It's not a lifetime appointment.

Strive for low expectations.  No expectations would be ideal.

Any job that allows you to daydream is good for a writer.

If you do love teaching, you must be careful not to give up the longterm gratification of writing for the short term gratitude of colleagues and students.

No writing is wasted.  You needed to write this but now you need to write something else...so far, that next book, has always been astonishing.

Hard not to think there is a future in which your career will be different.  Where the things you've longed for are in your lap and you can rest.  No writer ever stops thinking this, even the very successful ones...Your writing life is right now, whatever that looks like.  It is already underway.

Luckily, an appetite for work is the most essential quality in a writer. ...(of course, there are those who) excoriate over their writing instead of their work habits.

(another spin on perfectionism): I need to be better than you.

Nobody actually knows what book will be a great success.  Not agents or publishers.  They only know what was successful last year.

The only thing that makes me feel better, after writing breaks my heart, is writing.

If I can write a little, I feel competent.  It is one of the few things that makes me feel that way.

I might be most myself when I write.

I can do nearly nothing off the top of my head except (write).

It's been a joy to write this.  Joy?  Yes, I think so.  That's what I need to experience for a book to be a book of my heart.  I need to write sentences, at least sometimes, that make me think, as I compose them, "Look at that."

It's a long game.  That's all I ever want to impart... What matters is that you learn to get work done in the way that is possible for you.

(Writing is) a lifelong course of study.

A writer has a mantra and it's the same one for everybody: " I am a genius with much to learn."