Anna Noyes Recommends...

“The stories I write begin as fragments that spend months or years in the Failure Folder, a limbo where I hide unfinished pieces too raw, unspeakable,

or unwieldy to share. In the years I regularly attended writing workshops, I had a habit of convincing myself to plan to turn in old, serviceable, safe work. And then, after dinner on the night before class, I’d inevitably begin tinkering with one of my failures. When I thought of going to bed I’d say, sometimes aloud, ‘You’re alright, just keep telling the story.’ I’d gently urge myself on in this way into the wee hours. My first impulse is to doubt my work, but in this sleepless, trancelike state another part of myself—calm, steady, persistent—took hold. In the morning, bleary enough to be emboldened, I’d turn in the draft. Now, a few years older, my mind gets foggy after 11:00 PM. But I’m still trying to tap into that part of myself that holds inexplicable faith in those stories I have deemed failures. On a good day I know to keep telling the story, sentence by sentence, like a stenographer taking dictation. On a very good day, I might even be brave enough to risk sharing the result with the world.”
—Anna Noyes, author of Goodnight, Beautiful Women (Grove, 2016)