The lessons learned in journalism also apply. Writing for NPR has taught me to cut a piece in half and then in half again – without losing the essence. Apply that to the swollen prose of a bulky novel and you might reveal a beautiful work.
While I was in college becoming a good Catholic I was also becoming a writer – one haunted by Catholicism.
Writing is my obsession, my passion. My relationship with it is one of the most complex and agonizing and richly vexing that I have in my life.
Each genre has something to teach me about the others. Not all the lessons are transferable, but many of the most important ones are.
I don’t have a favorite. I need different genres at different times.
My work is to know the characters intimately and to tell their story.
I have faith in human beings. I struggle with that faith.
One of the reasons I write in different genres is that I get to have the feeling – even fleetingly – that I’m not just writing like Baggott again. I can escape myself.
Different genres allow me to not feel so hemmed in by my own voice, tics, style.
I don’t know when I’m writing dark. I don’t know when I’m writing funny or even heartbreaking. I’m always just trying to write it true.
You want the greatest trick for writing a novel? Here it is: imagine urgently whispering your story into one person’s ear – and only one. This one visualization will clarify every word choice you make.
My childhood was marked by the great fear of nuclear holocaust. We practiced our Civil Defense Drills, lining up in hallways, curled to the floor, but we knew we’d die or, worse, survive only to suffer radiation and slow death.
The generation of women who came before us did much of our shouting. They laid the groundwork and now we can be calm and constant and steady.
Literature has done great work for feminism – writing and reading are a practice of empathy – and great literature will continue to do so.
I want to keep looking at ways to stride forward with positivity.
I want women writers to write boldly, wildly, deeply. I want them to feel really liberated to tell the brutal truth, however they see that truth and are moved to tell it.
When a colleague of mine had a notable New York Times book, I said, turn one of the chapters in the collection into a pitch for a novel and sell it to your publisher.
Some of the best work done to combat the Republicans has been wit and humor.
Women are constantly underestimated in our power, our reach, our collective pull.
The fact is there are many women who nod politely, even agree openly within their male-dominated often highly educated cultures, but vote their own minds.
I’m about to start something new. I’m waiting to be whelmed. The whelming as you start something new is quite something.