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Meg Waite Clayton

New York Times Bestselling Author

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February 4, 2017 By Meg Waite Clayton

Alice McDermott on the Perils of Publishing

I’m offering today’s quote, from one of the contemporary writers I most admire, in a shorter and longer version. The shorter version is funny, and the longer of course puts it in context, and I cannot stress the truth of this one enough for anyone with the great fortune to be publishing:

The most disruptive thing you can do to your writing life is publish something.” – Alice McDermott

And the longer:

I have learned that the most disruptive thing you can do to your writing life is publish something . . . amidst all the other demands of normal living, you carve out some time to sit around and make up stories, and then you publish a book and suddenly you’re supposed to travel all over and meet people and give interviews and visit book clubs — all of which you do, of course, because you’re grateful to your readers, and to your publisher, and to anyone at all who feels kindly toward literary fiction . . . but the time and silence and shedding of self-consciousness so necessary to the writing of fiction slowly seeps away. Fortunately, literary novels (and the people who write them) have a short shelf life in the public arena, and eventually, you get to return to the work . . . and on the days it doesn’t go well you find yourself thinking, Why doesn’t someone call and disrupt me?” – Alice McDermott

It comes from an interview in the Washington Post which is well worth reading.
Meg

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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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