Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Well, I became a writer partly I

think because I was a very early reader.

And I was a very early reader because I grew up

in the North Woods, and there were no other forms out there.

So no radio, no television, no theater, no cinema,

So no radio, no television, no theater, no cinema,

no electricity, and no running water, but there were books.

We weren't in a village.

We weren't in a town.

We were actually out in the woods.

Except for the winters, we would go back to a city.

So other children might be afraid of being lost

amongst the trees, et cetera.

I was afraid of flush toilets.

What was going on there?

Why did things just vanish?

I was an early writer.

I was an early writer.

I wrote comics, and I wrote little stories,

and I wrote my first novel when I was seven.

It was about an ant.

It was not a great success, but it was illustrated.

And then I lost interest in writing.

I wanted to be a painter.

One of my first entrepreneurial activities

was a puppetry business in high school.

We ran birthday parties for five-year-olds,

and the puppet shows were always about those things

and the puppet shows were always about those things

that are dear to the hearts of five-year-olds, namely

cannibalism.

So they were the classics.

They were the "Three Little Pigs."

They were "Little Red Riding Hood,"

and they were "Hansel and Gretel."

And I started riding seriously again when I was 16.

Then I really wanted to be a writer.

And I thought maybe I would go to journalism school,

and I was discouraged from that by being

told that if I was a female working for a newspaper,

told that if I was a female working for a newspaper,

I would be writing nothing but the obituaries and the fashion

pages.

This was the '50s.

So then I thought I would run away to Paris,

live in a garret, drink absinthe, smoke cigarettes,

write masterpieces, die young.

But first, I would go to English language and literature,

because I might conceivably end up as a teacher

before jumping off the bridge.

before jumping off the bridge.

Then I ended up going to graduate school

at Harvard, which was proposed to me as being

better than being a waitress.

I would get more writing done that way I was told

by those who were humoring me.

And I did have one of my advisors

say that I should just forget about this writing and graduate

school business and find a good man and get married.

But I paid no attention to that.

So by this time, I was already publishing

So by this time, I was already publishing

in small literary magazines, and I was already

writing the same kinds of things that I have continued

to write, namely poetry, fiction,

and nonfiction, and roughly speaking, dramatic works.

So I continued doing those things

in the world of little magazines and small publishing,

and I published my first book of poetry in 1966.

and I published my first book of poetry in 1966.

I made the cover myself out of letters and the little red dots

that you put on legal contracts.

That book of poetry won the only literary prize

that was going in Canada at that time.

And I got a letter from one of the few publishing

companies that then existed saying

they heard that I had a novel.

Well, I did have a novel.

It was my second novel.

My first had come to nothing, but the second one I

My first had come to nothing, but the second one I

had actually sent to this very same publisher

two years before.

And they had accepted it.

So I wrote back to them saying that that, actually, they

had my novel, and could I please have it back?

The publishers said to me, let's have a drink.

And he said, we'll publish your book.

And I said, have you read it?

And he said, no, but I will.

Then he told me a whopping lie.

Then he told me a whopping lie.

He said that the reason they'd lost track of my book

was that the female editor in charge of it

had gotten pregnant.

And you know what that does to their brains.

And she had put it in a drawer and not told anybody.

But I have eyes everywhere.

I have my informants.

And I discovered that what really had happened

was that it was on the floor of his office

all of this time with other people's manuscripts

piled on top of it.

But the upshot was that it finally appeared in 1969, just

But the upshot was that it finally appeared in 1969, just

in time for the women's movement.

So it was one of those books that

was considered, depending on who is reviewing it,

either as an early women's movement book or as a book

by quite a young writer who would grow up later.

So that's how I became a writer.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I never start with an idea.

When people are teaching books, books

that have already been finished, then they can talk about ideas.

Because by that time, somebody might know what the idea is

or what the ideas are.

The way we were taught literature in high school

was probably backwards.

You were taught that there was this container, the work

of art, and inside it, there were these ideas like prizes

in a cracker jack box.

But that isn't usually how writers write.

But that isn't usually how writers write.

They start with characters.

They start with voices.

They start with scenes.

Sometimes my books have started with objects, and out of that

comes a story.

Because what are novels if not stories?

I start with handwriting, because that

seems for me to allow more of a flow from brain

to hand to page.

to hand to page.

So I'm transcribing and typing at the same time

I'm continuing to write, and that

allows me to remember what I have just written.

And when I have about maybe 50, 60 pages, then

I can start thinking about structure.

As a rule, I work with a lot of Post-It notes and notebooks,

and those afterthoughts get stuck here and there

on the desk.

on the desk.

And then you incorporate them into a draft.

But I'm more of a downhill skier.

I try to go as fast as I can.

And then I have to backtrack a lot and fill in and re-visions.

And when you re-vision it, you say things

that you might not have seen the first time through when

you were writing it.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Nobody knows where ideas come from.

Nobody knows where ideas come from.

But let us say, if you immerse yourself

in something, whether it be music, painting,

or writing, or thinking about science,

which I do quite a bit, if you immerse yourself in something,

you are going to get ideas about it.

But you have to do the immersing first.

You're not just sitting there waiting for lightning

to strike.

You're working in a metier.

And the more you work in it, the more ideas

you will get about it.

you will get about it.

That's just how human creativity works of whatever kind.

You don't always write in a linear fashion.

Some people have to start at the beginning

and go through in order till they get to the end.

Some people like to work at the page level,

at the sentence level, and get that perfect

before they move on.

Others are much more prone to revisioning once they

have a somewhat finished story.

have a somewhat finished story.

But there is no set of surefire rules

that are going to work for everyone.

So you can try these suggestions.

If they don't work for you, the wastepaper basket

is your friend.

You don't have to pay attention to anybody else's set of rules.

You will discover your own set of rules

by working with your own material

and finding out what best pleases you

and finding out what best pleases you

when you're arranging that.

But the main thing is that you're

trying to make your book the best it

can be in its own terms.

And if these kinds of things are helpful to you, that's great.

And if they're not, disregard them.

If you really do want to write, and you're

If you really do want to write, and you're

struggling to get started, you're afraid of something.

What is that fear?

Are you afraid that people will laugh at you?

Are you afraid that it won't be any good?

Are you afraid that your mother will find out?

What is the fear?

And identify the fear.

Look that fear in the face.

And there are ways of dealing with all of these fears.

And there are ways of dealing with all of these fears.

People have used many ways of dealing with them.

Some of them have written under pseudonyms.

So if you're afraid your mother will find out,

make up another name.

Write under that name.

If you're afraid that people will laugh at you,

just remember you don't have to show them anything

until you're ready.

It's only you and the page.

There is no crowd of people standing

around making jeering noises.

around making jeering noises.

There may well be a helpful person

that may be a writer that you have

read who might be dead who you think of as being your helper.

But that person is on your side.

So if you're struggling, identify the fear and deal

with that fear and then that door will open for you.

A lot of people think about being writers,

A lot of people think about being writers,

but when it comes to actually writing something, they freeze.

So it's getting onto the page.

Unless you're writing something on the page,

you're not writing.