Letters to a Young Writer

by Colum McCann

  It might or might not become the fuel for your stories, but the one thing is that you cannot deny it. You just keep on writing, creating life from life, rib from rib, flaw from flaw.

  No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

  —SAMUEL BECKETT

  Beckett said it best, and it deserves repetition over and over again: “No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

  Failure is good. Failure admits ambition. Failure admits bravery. Failure admits daring. It requires courage to fail and even more courage to know that you’re going to fail. Reach beyond yourself. The true daring is the ability to go to the postbox knowing that it will contain yet another rejection letter. Don’t rip it up. Don’t burn it. Use it as wallpaper instead. Preserve it and reread it every now and then. Know that in the years to come this rejection letter will be a piece of nostalgia. It will yellow and curl and you will remember what it once felt like to throw your words against what everyone presumed would be your silence. Failure is vivifying. You know you’re better than it. Failure gets you up in the morning. Failure gets your blood circling. Failure dilates your nostrils. Failure tells you to write a bigger story and a better one.

  And in the end there’s only one real failure—and that’s the failure to be able to fail. Having tried is the true bravery.

  Take heart. Failure is a snap of sulfur to your brain. Light a match. Inhale.

  Trying to write without reading is like venturing out to sea all by yourself in a small boat: lonely and dangerous. Wouldn’t you rather see the horizon filled, end to end, with other sails? Wouldn’t you rather wave to neighboring vessels; admire their craftsmanship; cut in and out of the wakes that suit you, knowing that you’ll leave a wake of your own, and that there’s enough wind and sea for you all?

  —TÉA OBREHT

  You would be amazed by the number of writers who just do not read, especially older writers who believe that they are the only ones who deserve to be read. Their reading world shrinks. They believe that they have written enough that they can afford now to come indoors. They close the curtains. They deposit themselves in the corners of the couch, shadowed by their bookshelves. They dip in for a few pages and find themselves exhausted. They sell their curiosity to the sound of their own words. They forget about finding the expansive in others. But forgive them, forgive me. We have forgotten what it meant to be a young writer.

  So here it is, before I forget again. A young writer must read. She must read and read and read. Adventurously. Promiscuously. Unfailingly. It sounds so simple. Yet it is not. Not even the simplification of it. She must read everything that comes her way. The classics, the old books that speak to her from the shelves, the tomes recommended by teachers, the chapbooks left on the subway seats, the old dog-eared novels in the railway station, the ancient hardcover in the holiday cottage. Read, read, read. The brain is an agile canister. Your mind can contain so much. The more difficult the book, the better. The greater the agility of your reading, the greater the elasticity of your own work.

  Challenge yourself. Get out of the comfort zone. Find something that confounds others. The great joy in difficulty is, in fact, its difficulty.

  A young writer must also read her contemporaries. Fiercely and jealously. She must go into the bookshop and spend hours in awe and contemplation. She must flip to the biographies at the back. She must get her blood boiling. Shit, that author comes from my hometown. How dare they say what I want to say? Yes, rage, but a temporary rage. Not in competition, but in desire. (After all, they are not taking your job: your job is entirely your own, nobody else can have it, who else is going to finish your piece of literary carpentry, unless it’s an Ikea chair?)

  A young writer must go to the library and wander through the dusty old stacks. Run your fingers along the shelf. Follow your instincts. It is amazing how a book will find you. There is somehow a homing device in language. Unlike love, there is a destined one always there. And it can be found at any time. You must be open to it. Then you open it up to its magnitude of suggestion. The world is suddenly cleaved open.

  You read to fire your heart aflame. You read to lop the top of your head off. You read because you’re the bravest idiot around and you’re willing to go on an adventure into the joy of confusion. You know when a book is working. Give it time.

  And if it confuses you while thrilling you, that’s a good sign, keep going, keep going, keep going. Absolute consistency is unimaginative. Confusion is an honest response. Change comes about because of confusion. But there also comes a time when you might have to throw it away. Life is too short to drink bad wine, but it’s shorter still when it comes to bad books. So be prepared to jettison that book, but only after you have given it a good chance.

  A good book will turn your world sideways. It will also turn your own writing inside out. The prose writers should read the poets. The poets should read the novelists. The playwrights should read the philosophers. The journalists should read the short story writers. The philosophers should read through the entire crew. In fact, we all should read the entire crew. Nobody makes it alone.

  I have heard young writers say that they don’t have time to read. That’s most likely because they have already taken too much time shooting their mouths off. Listen, young writer, it’s ridiculous to say you don’t have the time to open a book. It’s ludicrous to claim that a book is too long. It’s unimaginative not to try the hardest work available. Márquez. Woolf. Gaddis. Hansen. Gass. This is the past shaping your future. It’s in what you read. We get our voices from these books. We discover masters this way and then we shape our own form of mastery by imitating, echoing, journeying through the canyon toward the canon, or the cannon—or both.

  But if you don’t read—especially in the direction of that which is supposedly difficult—you will never sustain your own writing. So, go. Rip up this damn letter. Find a corner. Open a book. Read the hardest thing you possibly can.

  Joan Didion says that we tell ourselves stories in order to live. So, live as many lives as you can. Over and over and over again.

  Rejoice. Read Joyce.

  In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what’s human and magical that still live and glow despite the times’ darkness.

  —DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

  Never forget that art is entertainment. It is your duty to reflect the world, yes, but it’s also your duty to bring a bit of brightness to it too.

  Hang a Nietzsche quote up on your wall: We have art, he says, so we shall not die of too much reality.

  Go down to the dark places, but bring a flaming torch. We have to have light enough to see the page. Make it colorful. Make it funny. Don’t remain stuck on one note. Shake it up. We have to keep ourselves open to all possibilities. Be interested in any available joy. The best writing makes us sit up and take notice and it makes us glad that we are—however briefly—alive.

  Anything can happen, the tallest towers be overturned, those in high places daunted.

  —SEAMUS HEANEY

  Every now and then, take a break. Go on holiday. Leave everything but the notebook behind. Learn how to like writing again. Miss it for a week or so. Don’t fret. Guess what: that blank page isn’t going anywhere.

  If we’re lucky, writer and reader alike, we’ll finish the last line or two of a short story and then just sit for a minute, quietly.

  —RAYMOND CARVER

  Ultimately your ideal reader is you. You are the one who has to take responsibility for it in the end. You must be prepared to listen to the deepest, most critical part of yourself. When you write something, try to imagine yourself a couple of decades from now, reading over the same piece, wondering if it still has worth. See yourself with a bit of time under your belt. Will your story stand up to the scrutiny of the new you? Will it embarrass you? Will it send a shiver of cold along your spine? Will you think, Did I do the right thing? Will you think, Did I hurt people?

 
; Be kind to yourself as well as being tough. Remember that any fool can knock a house down; it takes a real craftsperson to have built it in the first place.

  One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time….Give it, give it all, give it now.

  —ANNIE DILLARD

  If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been asked how to get an agent, I wouldn’t have to have an agent. Do you need an agent? Yes, yes, and (most of the time) yes. Finding one isn’t all that difficult, but finding the right one can change your life.

  First of all, find a writer whose work you admire. A younger one, preferably. Someone who is already represented by an agency, but is on the cusp of making an even greater success of their career. Find out who their agent is. It’s easily done—it’s the magic of Google, or the acknowledgments page, or trawling through a few website interviews. Then write the agent a letter or an email. Be quick and expansive both. Tell them you like their stable of writers and one in particular who seems to open up the airways of literature. Give them a little background, who you are, where you went to school, what you’ve already published. Ask if they’d like to read a few pages. Boast a little if you want. Strut your stuff. That’s all right. Agents are used to it. (Always tell them that you’re working on a novel…even if you’re not working on a novel yet.) Be smart, be confident, and always be brief.

  If they write back—and don’t expect anybody to write back—please don’t celebrate yet. Call them, talk to them, visit them, check them out. Ask them questions. The most important thing you should know about an agent is that you employ them, they don’t employ you. Some of them may make you feel (especially at the beginning of your career) that they have you in a tight harness, but the truth of the matter is that freedom is feeling easy in the harness.

  A good agent doesn’t lay down the law. Rather, they allow the law to unfold. They make business decisions. They ease the tax implications. They chat with editors and publishers and reporters. They forward invitations. They cull some of the loony tunes who might want to get in touch with you. They get you gigs. They talk you up. Yes, they can change your life instantly. And, yes, they can show you the money. But essentially you are your own agent, because the only thing it comes down to is the language on the page.

  You should be the governor of your own writing. Don’t change your words to suit an agent unless you know—deep in your heart’s core—that the agent is correct. Even then you must make sure that you are not compromising yourself. This is your work, after all. Agents become agents because they want things to sell, not necessarily to sing (although a great agent will sell and sing simultaneously).

  Listen to the agent, but be the agent of your own agency. This takes deep intuition. And a bit of style. And a good dose of humility.

  Don’t forget that you will be paying your agent anywhere up to twenty percent of your money, so a good agent will get you at least twenty-five percent more than you even imagined. Pay this willingly. Don’t question their expense sheet. Don’t second-guess them. Don’t whine or whisper. Your agent should be on your side. If he is not, then remember that you are his employer and fire him. Excuse me? Fire him, I said, fire him. (But not until you’ve found another agent.)

  Remember that this is your work. You go to the coalface every day. You know what it takes to lift that bucket of words up from the well. Be true to this instinct. You know where true value lies. Your words should jangle, not just your pocket.

  Now, go write.

  The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience.

  —FLANNERY O’CONNOR

  But what if I don’t get an agent? Don’t despair. Write on. Keep your arse in the seat. Get the words down on the page. Do what you love. Fight. Persevere. Find the magazines and journals you like. Go to the contributors list. Find the name of the editor. Then find his or her email address. Write a letter, a personal letter, a heartfelt letter, something with personality and style. Ask if they would like to read your work. Don’t be afraid. Be polite. Be humble. Be kind. And yet triumph yourself at the same time. The only thing you can lose here is a few words or a few minutes of an email. Send it out and then forget it. Get on with the next thing. Don’t sit around, don’t obsess, don’t shadow the phone, don’t hover over the mouse. Don’t even hope. You’ve already done the big thing by finishing.

  Guess what? Nothing wrong with being rejected. It happens to everyone. (I have wallpapered bathrooms with rejection slips.) Try it again a few months later. Don’t get wounded. Don’t be temperamental. Have a sense of humor. Remind them that they once sent you a fabulously written rejection letter. And to hell with simultaneous submissions! Pepper-spray the magazines you love! Send, send, send! Whoever accepts you first wins the prize. But don’t play magazines off one another. Don’t bargain or trade.

  Go to the postbox every day and accept that the bad news will eventually make the good news feel even better. An agent will eventually come knocking. Or a publisher will come knocking. (They do read even the smallest magazines, by the way.)

  Be daring. Be original. Nothing good is ever achieved through predictability.

  I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss—you can’t do it alone.

  —JOHN CHEEVER

  A great editor is a precious thing. Maybe it’s your best friend. Maybe it’s a classmate. Maybe it’s a workshop participant. Maybe it’s your husband. Maybe it’s someone you hire. Or maybe it’s the editor at a magazine or publishing house. No matter what, the right editor has to be someone you trust. You have to give them space. You have to give them time. You have to listen. You have to be humble in the presence of their opinion. Simple as it sounds, you have to respect them. You don’t always have to agree with them. It’s about your own ability to see someone else reshaping your work. But it’s also about their ability to be wrong. Assess the value of what they say. Try the sentence with their edit. Try it without. Speak it aloud. Say it again. Thank them for the edit, even if you didn’t use it.

  If you’re in the lucky position that your book or story has sold, remember that the editor who acquired it is not a box to be ticked off. She can be the sculptor of your writing. Be thankful when the suggestions arrive. And remember she does so much more than editing. She negotiates your deal. She gets your books sent out for blurbs. She goes to marketing meetings. She watches you get the praise, and gets little herself. And, if you don’t get the praise, she suffers.

  An editor is a person who knows what the limelight is and has chosen to shadow it. Acknowledge that shadow.

  And every now and then send her flowers out of the blue.

  All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.

  —E. B. WHITE

  Writing can exhaust us. Sometimes we just can’t see the words anymore. We have become so close that we forget what it might be like to read it for the first time. Often we need a bit of breathing space between us and our work.

  When you’ve finished a story or a poem, try putting it away for a week or two so that you can look at it with fresh eyes. Write something else for a while. Believe in absence. Enjoy the loneliness.

  When you are rested and ready to get reacquainted with your work, do so with joy and trepidation both. Title it. Give it an epigraph. Print it out. Bind it up. Tuck it under your arm. Go out somewhere public. Assert that your work exists beyond your own mind. Go into the streets. Find a park bench or a coffee shop or a library where you can sit down with it. Pretend you are a brand new reader who has never seen these pages before. Be surprised, even by the sight of your own name on the front page. Go from beginning to end, stopping only to scrawl an odd note in the margin. Be honest with yourself. Is it something that still thrills you? Has it taken on the right shape? Is it something you can take home and continue? Have you breathed air into its lungs? Has the heart grown fonder?

  Or is it time to throw it away?

&
nbsp; One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

  —ANDRÉ GIDE

  Sometimes, young writer, you just have to have the cojones to wipe the whole slate clean.

  Occasionally you know—you know, you just know, deep in your gut—that it’s not good enough. Or you’ve been chasing the wrong story. Or you’ve been slogging through the tar long enough. Or you’ve been waiting for another moment of inspiration. You’ve been hanging on but the truth of it is that you’re down to your last fingernail.

  Often the true voice is not heard until long into the story. It might be a year of work, hundreds of pages, or even more. (One of the most liberating days of my writing life was when I threw eighteen months of work away.) But something in you knows—it just knows—that everything you have written so far has just been preparation for what you are now about to write. You have finally found your north, your east, your west. No south, no going back.

  So you have to throw it away.*

  It is terrifying of course. You close the file, you bury the pages. You have a little wake for the words. You whiskey them up. But part of this—like any wake—is celebration too. The deep knowledge is that every bit of work you’ve done has led you to this point. You have created a sort of muscular memory. You have been writing toward your obsession, but now you have found the point where that obsession will truly open up. Be thankful. Your thrown-away pages have led you here. Your work has served its purpose.