**Wendell Berry** "You may reasonably suspect that the poet worked his way to each new poem partly by the motive of disappointment with the last." (William Carlos Williams of Rutherford) **Anthony Trollope** *Starting late in life* His mother only started writing when she was 50. She retired from writing when she was 76. In that period, she wrote 114 books. "Her career offers great encouragement to those who have not begun in early life, but are still ambitious to do something before they depart hence." (Autobiography of Anthony Trollope) *Long hiatuses from writing* When he was 36 years old, he spent 2 years improving the postal system in rural areas of England. He enjoyed the work so much that he didn't do any writing at all. "This work took up my time so completely, and entailed upon me so great an amount of writing, that I was in fact unable to do any literary work. From day to day I thought of it, still purporting to make another effort, and often turning over in my head some fragment of a plot which had occurred to me. But the day did not come in which I could sit down with my pen and paper and begin another novel." *On the monetary rewards of writing, or lack thereof* In 1855, at the age of 40, he published the first book that earned him any money. By 1857, he had been writing for ten years, and had earned a grand total of 55 pounds. "Indeed, as regarded remuneration for the time, stone-breaking would have done better. A thousand copies were printed, of which, after a lapse of five or six years, about 300 had to be converted into another form, and sold as belonging to a cheap edition." Some castle in the air firmly built within my mind (Trollope is comparing the mind to a container. "I will mention here another habit what had grown upon me from still earlier years, which I myself often regarded with dismay when I thought of the hours devoted to it, but which, I suppose, must have tended to make me what I have been. As a boy, even as a child, I was thrown much upon myself. I have explained, when speaking of my school-days, how it came to pass that other boys would not play with me. I was therefore alone, and had to form my plays within myself. Play of some kind was necessary to me then, as it always has been. Study was not my bent, and I could not please myself by being all idle. Thus it came to pass that I was always going about with some castle in the air firmly built within my mind. Nor were these efforts in architecture spasmodic, or subject to constant change from day to day. For weeks, for months, if I remember rightly, from year to year, I would carry on the same tale, binding myself down to certain laws, to certain proportions, and proprieties, and unities. Nothing impossible was ever introduced, nor even anything which, from outward circumstances, would seem to be violently improbable. I myself was of course my own hero. Such is a necessity of castle-building. But I never became a kind, or a duke, much less when my height and personal appearance were fixed could I be an Antinous, or six feet high. I never was a learned man, nor even a philosopher. But I was a very clever person, and beautiful young women used to be fond of me. And I strove to be kind of heart, and open of hand, and noble in thought, despising mean things; and altogether I was a very much better fellow than I have ever succeeded in being since. This had been the occupation of my life for six or seven years before I went to the Post Office, and was by no means abandoned when I commenced my work. There can, I imagine, hardly be a more dangerous mental practice; but I have often doubted whether, had it not been my practice, I should ever have written a novel. I learned in this way to maintain an interest in a fictitious story, to dwell on a work created by my own imagination, and to live in a world altogether outside the world of my own material life. In after years I have done the same, with this difference, that I have discarded the hero of my early dreams, and have been able to lay my own identity aside." *On the difficulty of starting out* "I still felt that there might be a career before me, if I could only bring myself to begin the work. I do not think I much doubted my own intellectual sufficiency for the writing of a readable novel. What I did doubt was my own industry, and the chances of the market. The vigour necessary to prosecute two professions at the same time is not given to every one, and it was only lately that I had found the vigour necessary for one. There must be early hours, and I had not as yet learned to love early hours. I was still, indeed, a young man; but hardly young enough to trust myself to find the power to alter the habits of my life." *On the difficulty of getting published* "I had dealt already with publishers on my mother's behalf, and knew that many a tyro who could fill a manuscript lacked the power to put his matter before the public; and I knew, too, that when the matter was printed, how little had been done towards the winning of the battle! I had already learned that many a book—many a good book—'is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air.'" *On early [[The benefits of failure]]* He started his first book when he was 28. It was finally published when he was 32: "I was sure that the book would fail, and it did fail me absolutely. I never heard of a person reading it in those days. If there was any notice taken of it by any critic of the day, I did not see it ... I do not remember that I felt in any way disappointed or hurt. I am quite sure that no word of complaint passed my lips. I think I may say that after the publication I never said a word about the book, even to my wife ... In Ireland, I think that no one knew that I had written a novel. But I went on writing." On his second book, published when he was 33: "The book was not only not read, but was never heard of—at any rate, in Ireland ... Any success would, I think, have carried me off my legs, but I was altogether prepared for failure. Though I thoroughly enjoyed the writing of these books, I did not imagine, when the time came for publishing them, that any one would condescend to read them." "I had at once gone to work on a third novel, and had nearly completed it, when I was informed of the absolute failure of the former ... I have no doubt that the result of the sale of this story was no better than that of the two that had gone before. I asked no questions, however, and to this day have received no information." "I would have bet twenty to one against my own success. But by continuing I could lose only pen and paper; and if the one chance in twenty did turn up in my favour, then how much might I win!" Perfect example of the asymmetric bets that are favored in [[anti-fragility]] *Letter from the publisher of his second book* "My dear sir,—I am sorry to say that absence from town and other circumstances have prevented me from earlier inquiring into the results of the sale of The Kellys and the O'Kellys, with which the greatest efforts have been used, but in vain. The sale has been, I regret to say, so small that the loss upon publication is very considerable; and it appears clear to me that, although in consequence of the great number of novels that are published, the sale of each, with some few exceptions, must be small, yet it is evident that readers do not like novels on Irish subjects as well as on others. Thus, you will perceive, it is impossible for me to give any encouragement to you to proceed in novel-writing." *On attempting to write a play* "When my historical novel failed, as completely as had its predecessors, the two Irish novels, I began to ask myself whether, after all, that was my proper line. I had never thought of questioning the justice of the verdict expressed against me. The idea that I was the unfortunate owner of unappreciated genius never troubled me. I did not look at the books after they were published, feeling sure that *On integrity with respect to critics* "A dear friend of mine to whom the book had been sent,—as have all my books,—wrote me word to Ireland that he had been dining at some club with a man high in authority among the gods of the Times newspaper, and that this special god had almost promised that The O'Kelleys should be noticed in that most influential of 'organs.' The information moved me very much; but it set me thinking whether the notice, should it ever appear, would not have been more valuable, at any rate, more honest, if it had been produced by other means;—if, for instance, the writer of the notice had been instigated by the merits or demerits of the book instead of by the friendship of a friend. And I made up my mind then that, should I continue this trade of authorship, I would have no dealings with any critic on my own behalf. I would neither ask for nor deplore criticism, nor would I ever thank a critic for praise, or quarrel with him, even in my own heart, for censure. To this rule I have adhered with absolute strictness, and this rule I would recommend to all young authors. What can be got by touting among the critics is never worth the ignominy." **2011 interview of poet and translator David Ferry by Tess Taylor:** “Until I started doing a lot of translating, I don’t think I wrote more than three times a year, and I tended to revise a poem over 10 years or so." TT: You published your first book of poems, On the Way to the Island, in the mid-1960s, when you were in your 30s. Then there’s a gap of 23 years until the appearance of your next book, Strangers. Would you tell us something about your life during those years? DF: Simplest answer: slow writer, two or three poems a year, 20 years means a book—trying to make the book have some sort of coherence; teaching; committees; bone-lazy. **Other quotes from David Ferry:** “My writing almost never comes from deciding I’m going to write a poem on this subject,” Ferry says. “It almost always comes from … some language I found in my own writing notes to myself. I have a phrase I can’t get out of my head and so the poem might come from thinking about that. It doesn’t come from systemic purpose. I don’t think in terms of projects.” *** **Graham Greene on his writing methods:** "Over twenty years I have probably averaged five hundred words a day for five days a week. I can produce a novel in a year, and that allows time for revision and the correction of the typescript. I have always been very methodical, and when my quota of work is done I break off, even in the middle of a scene. Every now and then during the morning’s work I count what I have done and mark off the hundreds on my manuscript. No printer need make a careful cast-off of my work, for there on the front page is marked the figure — 83,764. When I was young not even a love affair would alter my schedule. A love affair had to begin after lunch, and however late I might be in getting to bed — as long as I slept in my own bed — I would read the morning’s work over and sleep on it. … So much of a novelist’s writing, as I have said, takes place in the unconscious; in those depths the last word is written before the first word appears on paper. We remember the details of our story, we do not invent them." *** **1994 New Yorker article on writer's block:** Writing is a nerve-flaying job. First of all, what the Symbolists said is true: clichés come to the mind much more readily than anything fresh or exact. To hack one’s way past them requires a huge, bleeding effort. (For anyone who wonders why seasoned writers tend to write for only about three or four hours a day, that’s the answer.)