Reading the wise words of other writers is a great way of finding inspiration for your own writing. We all have favourite writers and these days many of them have some sort of web presence. It’s worth gooogling and seeing if your favourites have a blog or website. These sites will have the usual publicity blurbs about their latest books and some information on their lives but there’s often recent postings from the writer, many of which will contain pearls of wisdom about writing and life in general.
There are also a number of books around in which writers are interviewed about their works. Take a look at these for starters:
- Writers On Writing – Ed James Roberts, Barry Mitchell, Roger Zubrinich (Penguin 2002) (Australian)
- Writers On Writing Vol ll – More Collected Essays from The New Tork Times (Times Books 2004)
- Making Stories – How Ten Australian Novels Were Written -Kate Grenville and Sue Woolfe (Allen & Unwin 1993)
- Speaking Voumes – Conversations with Remarkable Writers – Ramona Koval (Scribe 2010)
Magazines like Writer’s Digest have loads of information on writing in general and always have an interview or two with a well known writer. In the latest edition Alice Walker shares her views on writing and the writing life. You can read an extended version of the interview at www.writersdigest.com/article/alice-walker-uncut and you can find her blog at www.alicewalkerblog.com
I’ll leave you with these lines from Alice Walker’s poem, The Writer’s Life:
Writers perfect
The art
Of doing nothing
So beautifully.
…
If there is a
Story
It will
Cough
In the middle
Of our
Lazy
Day
Only once
Maybe more
& Announce
itself.
Happy reading … and writing.
I was not aware of the book you mentioned above (Speaking Voumes – Conversations with Remarkable Writers – Ramona Koval). I will have to source a copy.
Love your blog!
Thanks Angella! The Ramona Kaval book is available at ABC shops.