Lecture 24: Making a Life as a Fiction Writer
as if on a screen. Rather, it’s the experience of fully inhabiting
another life or world, where your mind is fully engaged—but
not as yourself.o Another way to express this reason is to say that the most
sublime experience in writing comes when you feel as if you
are remembering the book, not creating it. It is as if the book is
out there in the ether someplace, and you are simply recording
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what’s on the page at last matches the melody in your head, the
one only you can hear.z For Orwell, the motive he valued above all others was politics; for many
writers, it’s more personal. What it might be for you is something only
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to be and whatever struggles and triumphs you have with writing and
publishing, the act of creation itself will provide a great deal of meaning
and satisfaction in your life.Lamott, %LUGE\%LUG.
Orwell, “Why I Write.”
Woolf, $5RRPRI2QH¶V2ZQ.Suggested Reading