By Nava Atlas | On November 29, 2015 | Updated December 28, 2018 | Comments (0)
Dear Literary Ladies,
So many creative people are afraid to share their work with the world because they can’t risk failing. What words of wisdom can you offer to those of us who are willing to take that risk, and to bear inevitable failures with as much grace as possible?
In the working-day life of a professional writer success or failure is very likely to sum up much the same at the end. I don’t mean that failure is as pleasant as success. I’ve known both. Success stimulates the glands, revivifies the spirits, feeds the ego, fills the purse.
Failure is a depressing thing to face. The critics rip your play to ribbons, audiences refuse to come to it; reviewers say your book is dull, or trite, readers will not buy it. You read these things, you hear them, you face them as you would face any misfortune, with as good grace as you can summon. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On November 9, 2015 | Updated May 8, 2017 | Comments (0)
Dear Literary Ladies,
Every time I finish a piece of work, I feel so depleted. It feels like I’ll never be able to write another word, let alone complete anything. Is this common, and do accomplished authors ever feel this way?
This fear is one of the horrors of an author’s life. Where does work come from? What chance, what small episode will start the chain of creation? I once wrote a story about a writer who could not write anymore, and my friend Tennessee Williams said, ‘How could you dare write that story, it’s the most frightening work I have ever read.’ I was pretty well sunk while I was writing it.
— Carson McCullers, 1917 – 1967 Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On October 4, 2015 | Updated July 3, 2016 | Comments (2)
Dear Literary Ladies,
I know that rejection is part of a writer’s life, but every time one submits something that gets turned down, it’s hard not to feel crushed. How did you learn to cope with it, and not take it personally?
After leaving Prince of Wales College I taught school for a year in Bideford, Prince Edward Island. I wrote a good deal and learned a good deal, but my stuff came back except from two periodicals the editors of which evidently thought that literature was its own reward, and quite independent of monetary considerations. I often wonder that I did not give up in utter discouragement. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On August 30, 2015 | Updated March 9, 2023 | Comments (0)
Dear Literary Ladies,
I just got a taste of sweet success—all my work and efforts seem to be coming to some fruition. I don’t want to boast or brag, but I admit I want to shout my news from the rooftops! I won’t, of course; but how should a writer savor success once it arrives? Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On August 16, 2015 | Updated March 25, 2026 | Comments (0)
Dear Literary Ladies,
I’m having trouble juggling parenting and writing. I can’t live without writing, but every day brings a thousand interruptions, and I’m just not getting anything done. How can I make this a more positive experience, and feel less frustrated? Did any of you manage to raise a few kids and create a body of work simultaneously, and if so, how did you do it?
Perhaps the most useful thing about being a writer of fiction is that nothing is ever wasted; all experience is good for something; you tend to see everything as a potential structure of words. One of my daughters made this abruptly clear to me when she came not long ago into the kitchen where I was trying to get the door of our terrible old refrigerator open; it always stuck when the weather was wet, and one of the delights of a cold rainy day was opening the refrigerator door. Read More→
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