#MASTERWRITER UPDATE HOW TO#

And they don't understand just the brute labor, just the absolute toil and frustration that King and every single other writer that's ever lived is actually doing. And we have to say, 'Hey,' and I say this to my students all the time, 'Hey, what are some pictures that you have in your mind about how writers work, and how writers live, and how writers exist in the world and how they do what they do?'Īnd so they have these ideas that Stephen King sits down and just writes his novels from page one to page, whatever, 67 or 670. And that all has to be addressed, first of all. And` this kind of fanciful notion that it's just, you sit down and you open up your brain, or it's a visitation from the muse, or you have to be intoxicated either by alcohol or by some sort of inebriate. And so first of all, we have to kind of look at what are some of the snapshots or pictures that we have as a culture, as an academic culture and also as a culture of literature and language, of who writers are and what writers do. Liz: Well, first of all, we have to address it. Tom: Can you say the second part? How do you dismantle that? I just wanted to dismantle all of that for them. They bring with them kind of this scene in popular culture, where someone sits down in front of an old-timey typewriter and begins flight-of-the-bumblebee typing, or someone in a garret, someone in an attic flat in Paris, smoking clove cigarettes, and wearing their beret and living the life of a writer. Writing is struggle and writing is difficult.Īnd if I can dismantle that for my students early on… because they bring with them, to my classroom, a lot of these myths.

And the reality is, that's a complete lie. So I think we all have these fantasies that somewhere out there, there's someone who can write in a way that's effortless. And they know exactly what image will deliver what feeling in the reader's heart and mind. And they know exactly when to execute a line break of a poem.

#MASTERWRITER UPDATE HOW TO#

And they know exactly how to plot their novel. And ideas, they're just brimming with ideas. And that is someone who also, it appears as though everything comes naturally. And so for many of us, it's that person, this myth that we've created in our minds, that there are people for whom writing is easier.Īnd if you are a writer who is pursuing a life of letters, maybe the master writer is the writer you see in popular culture. And it was so easy for them to put their ideas into language and then arrange it in such a way that it made people feel a certain way.

And so the master writer for you may be a student that you sat next to, or a peer that you sat next to in middle school or high school that you always thought it just came naturally to them, that it was just so easy for them to get ideas. For most of us, the writing that we have done in our lifetime has been around an academic setting. I think the myth of the master writer may be different for different people, depending on where you enter into the dance of writing. What needs to be dismantled, do you think? And I wonder if we could stay with that for a bit. You say that one of your intentions is to dismantle the myth of the master writer. And I'd like to start with something you say early in the book. And it was certainly a pleasure to work with you on it. Liz, want to congratulate you on your new book, beautifully written.

Masterwriter update