Writers Recommend

“What inspires me? Running. Because there’s nothing like having nothing except your own two feet, the sight of some far off point, and a hard breath to keep you going. That’s what writing a novel is like for me—that far off point. When the going is good, the time it takes to get from one place to the next vanishes and you know you’ve gone somewhere. It’s a sweaty slog, but I often wonder why people race to that finish line when they aren’t ready to cross it. Just keep an even pace and enjoy the jog.”
—Michelle Hoover, author of The Quickening (Other Press, 2010)

“When I’m stumped, I often go to the library stacks and look at old science treatises. The scientific language of the 1800s and early 1900s is so filled with longing that I start imagining stories in just a few pages. For some reason, educational films from the 1940s and 50s have the same effect on me. The Internet Archive is a great resource for these (this film on the benefits and dangers of fire is one of my favorites). Maybe it is the inherent tension of scientific discourse that enchants me—the way it navigates that strange border between empiricism and awe.”
—Tina May Hall, author of The Physics of Imaginary Objects (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010)

“On a narrow strip of cork board, among news clippings and postcards, is a small vellum-colored paper square, printed by the artist Tom Ashcraft, that has inspired me for many years. It has a black circle on it, and inside that circle, curving around the diameter, are four words: ‘EXPLORE,’ ‘EXAMINE,’ ‘DISCOVER,’ and ‘REPORT.’ One of the things that appeals to me about this circle of words is that, like a wheel of fortune, you can start anywhere on the loop and keep going round, but in a way that both disciplines and frees the mind.”
—Carol Moldaw, author of So Late, So Soon (Etruscan Press, 2010)

“Rules. I'm a big believer in structure, and the idea that creativity loosens up when constrained a bit. I like to set a firm time for my writing; you could make a word count limit, (250 words today and I cannot leave the computer until it is done!) or set a timer and write for thirty minutes, or make a rule that you can only write from 8 to 8:30 and you must stop at 8:30. No email. No Internet. No getting the phone. No snacks. No working on that other piece of writing that is for work and not related to your fiction/poetry/memoir. No yoga. Take an hour and just sit there and it may be so uncomfortable that something will eventually happen. I often have to sit through a lot of restlessness to get to the work, but the restlessness, in my mind, can be a clue that there's something interesting and unknown up ahead, something unfamiliar. Or as Adam Phillips, a British psychoanalyst, has said: Boredom is just the process of waiting for oneself. The rules are arbitrary but they must hold firm. I find this incredibly helpful.”
—Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (Doubleday, 2010)