Jane Smiley's advice for writers

Jane Smiley, a Los Angeles native, is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "A Thousand Acres" and, most recently, "Private Life." She's written a dozen novels, including "The Georges and the Jewels" for young adults, plus several nonfiction books and essays and articles that have been published by many outlets, including the Los Angeles Times.

Fictionaut, the website where writers share and discuss works in progress, catches up with Smiley today to ask her for some of her writing tricks. Appealingly, they include candy and naps.

Asked how to get the creative juices flowing when they're stuck, Smiley replies:

Ride a horse. Take a bath. Read something. Eat a piece of candy. Set the clock for an hour and tell yourself you only have to work that long.

And her favorite writing exercises sound a lot like things your mom told you not to do. But Smiley says it's OK: Go ahead and eavesdrop.

Eavesdrop and write it down from memory -- gives you a stronger sense of how people talk and what their concerns are. I love to eavesdrop! Gossip. The more you talk about why people do things, the more ideas you have about how the world works. Write everyday, just to keep in the habit, and remember that whatever you have written is neither as good nor as bad as you think it is. Just keep going, and tell yourself that you will fix it later. Take naps. Often new ideas come together when you are half asleep, but you have to train yourself to remember them.

Find all of Jane Smiley's tips at Fictionaut. The site regularly posts its question series with authors -- called the Fictionaut Five -- on the Fictionaut blog, which is public. Writers interested in participating in the Fictionaut writing community can request an invite to join.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Jane Smiley in 2007. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Jurgen Fauth]

Thank you, Carolyn, for pointing your readers our way! A quick correction, if I may -- Fictionaut isn't just a place for works-in-progress but also very much a place to share, discover, and discuss finished stories, non-fiction, and poetry. Much of it is original, but many writers also like to post work that has appeared elsewhere to give it a permanent online home.

And it's a place for readers, too -- the front page at http://fictionaut.com shows the latest stories along with a list of recommended stories, based on community response. In fact, we like to think of it as a kind of community-edited literary magazine. You can dig through our archives of over 10,000 stories here: http://www.fictionaut.com/stories/sort?by=recommended&scope=all

Thanks again,
Jurgen

[Michele Gunderson]

Thanks for the great article, Carolyn. I love Jane's advice about how to get creative juices flowing.... How could anyone go wrong with candy, horses, and a bath?

In fact, these three, together with the suggestion about setting a timer, themselves create a fun writing prompt.... Write a story that begins with the words "candy," "horse," and "bath" in the first sentence. Set a timer for ten minutes and begin.

Just a thought......It arises from the spirit of playfulness so evident in the article. And of course the eavesdropping part could be a follow-up prompt too....

I look forward to eavesdropping and napping as much as possible in the next few days (and taking baths, of course). Thanks again for the inspiration!