Joyce Carol Oates: WRITE YOUR HEART OUT!

What advice can I, an older writer, presume to offer to a younger? Only what I might wish to have been told years ago:

1) Read widely, following your interest; choose a favorite writer and read everything that he/she has written, in chronological order.

2) Think of a "first draft" as raw material, to be revised, re-imagined, improved. As a young athlete builds skills by practice, so a young writer has to learn the art of revision, which is partly an art of patience.

3) Don't be satisfied with the "easy" praise of well-intentioned teachers and friends, who like you and don't want to upset or annoy you by offering serious criticism. (Or, they may not know enough to offer serious criticism.)

4) Don't be discouraged!

Joyce Carol Oates
Author of After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away, Sexy, Big Mouth & Ugly Girl, and Freaky Green Eyes

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