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Meg Waite Clayton

New York Times Bestselling Author

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January 7, 2009 By Meg Waite Clayton

Hemingway's Advice to Writers

For a new slant in the new year right, I’ve decided to mix author guest posts with advice from other writers on how a writer might … do whatever it is we do. This week, the advice comes from Ernest Hemingway on Writing, edited by Larry W. Phillips, and the quote is drawn originally from By-Line: Ernest Hemingway:
How can a writer train himself? … Watch what happens today. If we get into a fish see exactly what it is that everyone does. If you get a kick out of it while he is jumping remember back until you see exactly what the action was that gave you the emotion. Whether it was the rising of the line from the water and the way it tightened like a fiddle string until it drops started from it, or the way he smashed and threw water when he jumped. Remember what the noises were and what was said. Find what gave you the emotion; what the action was that gave you the excitement. Then write it down making it clear so the reader will see it too and have the same feeling that you had.
I’d also like to recommend the post Growth Mindset and Writing: A Celebration of Risk and Failure on author Elizabeth Stark’s wonderful blog, Write Angles: The Art of Craft.

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Meg Waite Clayton

Meg Waite Clayton is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of THE LAST TRAIN TO LONDON, a Jewish Book Award finalist based on the true story of the Kindertransport rescue of ten thousand children from Nazi-occupied Europe—and one brave woman who helped them escape. Her six prior novels include the Langum-Prize honored The Race for Paris and The Wednesday Sisters, one of Entertainment Weekly's 25 Essential Best Friend Novels of all time. A graduate of the University of Michigan and its law school, she has also written for the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Forbes, Runners World, and public radio, often on the subject of the particular challenges women face. megwaiteclayton.com

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