Read Online Why We Write by Meredith Maran - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Meredith Maran
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pages in half and stapled them carefully from the inside so it was nicely bound. I got a letter back from the editor—a rejection, of course. But I was thrilled. I have no idea what happened to the letter. I suspect it’s in my mother’s attic.
I was twelve when I wrote my first “novel.” It was about a girl who wakes up and a horse has jumped into her backyard. Lo and behold—the same thing had happened to her neighbor and best friend. It took up three school notebooks. I didn’t let anybody read it. I think that book is also in my mother’s attic.
I firmly believe that in order to write you must read. My parents had an extensive library, and as a kid I worked my way through it, picking the next book off the shelf when I was done with the last. I read everything from Alexander Pope to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Besides having a great library, one of the best things my parents did for my career was to make me take typing in high school. I can type as fast as I can think, which is crucial when the story’s flowing. I’ve been clocked at an honest 120 words a minute. Not coincidentally, nobody, including me, can read my handwriting. I’ve more or less given up on it.
There’s a moment in every book when the story and characters are finally
there
; they come to life, they’re in control. They do things they’re not supposed to do and become people they weren’t meant to be. When I reach that place, it’s magic. It’s a kind of rapture.
I would write even if I couldn’t make a living at it, because I can’t not write. I am amazed and delighted and still in a stateof shock about the success of
Water for Elephants
, but that’s not why I write. I do it for love. The rest is gravy.
How I write: through a portal darkly
When I write, I have to be entirely by myself. I just had an office built in our house, and it’s the first time I’ve ever had a room with a door, or even a room.
When I first started writing I had a corner in the living room. I put up a freestanding screen, but that didn’t keep little bodies from coming around the corner and asking for cookies. I could only write when no one else was home. We ran out of money for day care when my first book didn’t sell, so all of a sudden I was taking care of a toddler and trying to write. My husband built me an office—really more of a cage—out of baby gates. My son couldn’t unplug the computer anymore, but he could still throw things at me. Somehow I managed to finish my second book, and when it sold, we could afford a babysitter and once again I had the house to myself during the day.
That didn’t always translate into productivity. At one point, I was so stuck on
Water for Elephants
that I worked in a walk-in closet. I covered over the window and made my husband move his clothes out and pasted pictures of old-time circuses on the walls. We had no Wi-Fi, which was perfect. The only thing I could do was open my file. I figured if I stared at it long enough, something would happen. Apparently I was right, because I finished the book, but I spent four months in that closet. Does a walk-in closet count as a room of one’s own? Somehow I don’t think it’s what Virginia Woolf had in mind.
My writing process is embarrassingly ritualistic. When I’mbeginning a new book, I steep in the idea until the first scene comes to me whole. I go to sleep thinking about it, I’m thinking about it when I shower, when I cook. During that period I walk into a lot of walls.
Once I’m actually writing, my days all look the same. After I drink my tea, check my e-mail, and let the birds out, I open my file and read what I wrote the day before, over and over, until I feel I can continue. It usually takes me an hour and a half, but at some point I feel like I’ve gone through a portal into that other world, the fictional world, and I’m recording what’s going on rather than creating it.
If I answer the phone, or someone comes to the door, the spell is
I was twelve when I wrote my first “novel.” It was about a girl who wakes up and a horse has jumped into her backyard. Lo and behold—the same thing had happened to her neighbor and best friend. It took up three school notebooks. I didn’t let anybody read it. I think that book is also in my mother’s attic.
I firmly believe that in order to write you must read. My parents had an extensive library, and as a kid I worked my way through it, picking the next book off the shelf when I was done with the last. I read everything from Alexander Pope to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Besides having a great library, one of the best things my parents did for my career was to make me take typing in high school. I can type as fast as I can think, which is crucial when the story’s flowing. I’ve been clocked at an honest 120 words a minute. Not coincidentally, nobody, including me, can read my handwriting. I’ve more or less given up on it.
There’s a moment in every book when the story and characters are finally
there
; they come to life, they’re in control. They do things they’re not supposed to do and become people they weren’t meant to be. When I reach that place, it’s magic. It’s a kind of rapture.
I would write even if I couldn’t make a living at it, because I can’t not write. I am amazed and delighted and still in a stateof shock about the success of
Water for Elephants
, but that’s not why I write. I do it for love. The rest is gravy.
How I write: through a portal darkly
When I write, I have to be entirely by myself. I just had an office built in our house, and it’s the first time I’ve ever had a room with a door, or even a room.
When I first started writing I had a corner in the living room. I put up a freestanding screen, but that didn’t keep little bodies from coming around the corner and asking for cookies. I could only write when no one else was home. We ran out of money for day care when my first book didn’t sell, so all of a sudden I was taking care of a toddler and trying to write. My husband built me an office—really more of a cage—out of baby gates. My son couldn’t unplug the computer anymore, but he could still throw things at me. Somehow I managed to finish my second book, and when it sold, we could afford a babysitter and once again I had the house to myself during the day.
That didn’t always translate into productivity. At one point, I was so stuck on
Water for Elephants
that I worked in a walk-in closet. I covered over the window and made my husband move his clothes out and pasted pictures of old-time circuses on the walls. We had no Wi-Fi, which was perfect. The only thing I could do was open my file. I figured if I stared at it long enough, something would happen. Apparently I was right, because I finished the book, but I spent four months in that closet. Does a walk-in closet count as a room of one’s own? Somehow I don’t think it’s what Virginia Woolf had in mind.
My writing process is embarrassingly ritualistic. When I’mbeginning a new book, I steep in the idea until the first scene comes to me whole. I go to sleep thinking about it, I’m thinking about it when I shower, when I cook. During that period I walk into a lot of walls.
Once I’m actually writing, my days all look the same. After I drink my tea, check my e-mail, and let the birds out, I open my file and read what I wrote the day before, over and over, until I feel I can continue. It usually takes me an hour and a half, but at some point I feel like I’ve gone through a portal into that other world, the fictional world, and I’m recording what’s going on rather than creating it.
If I answer the phone, or someone comes to the door, the spell is
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