Jennifer Egan’s Advice For Young Writers

Discover Jennifer Egan’s advice for young writers and learn what this award-winning novelist has to say about developing your craft.

Jennifer Egan is an American novelist and short story writer. She was born on 7 September 1962.

Her novel A Visit From The Goon Squad won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Manhattan Beach was awarded the 2018 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.

She is also the author of The Invisible Circus, Look at Me, The Candy House, and Emerald City and Other Stories. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, and McSweeney’s, among other publications.

She has also written openly about her own experiences as a young writer, including working temporary jobs while writing fiction and developing a regular writing routine. Her experiences offer useful lessons for anyone beginning a writing career.

Here’s what she has to say about the writing life.

Jennifer Egan’s Advice For Young Writers

1. My advice is so basic. Number one: Read. I feel like it’s amazing how many people I know who want to be writers who don’t really read. I’m not convinced someone wants to be a writer if they don’t read. I don’t think the problem is that they need to read more; I think they might need to readjust their life goals. Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work. To be reading good things. I feel that you should be reading what you want to write. Nothing less.
2. The second thing is, I feel like getting in the habit of it is huge. I guess that was my one accomplishment of those two years [with the first failed novel]— making it a routine is a gigantic part of it. One corollary of that— and this is probably the most important thing for me— is being willing to write really badly. It won’t hurt you to do that. I think there is this fear of writing badly, something primal about it, like: ‘This bad stuff is coming out of me…’ Forget it! Let it float away and the good stuff follows. For me, the bad beginning is just something to build on. It’s no big deal. You have to give yourself permission to do that because you can’t expect to write regularly and always write well. That’s when people get into the habit of waiting for the good moments, and that is where I think writer’s block comes from. Like: It’s not happening. Well, maybe good writing isn’t happening, but let some bad writing happen. Let it happen! … So, just write and be happy that you did it. You stuck to the routine. You’re kind of holding the place so that you’re present for when something good is ready to come.
3. And then it’s all about rewriting. Re-visiting, re-visiting, and re-writing. I think it’s a mistake to be too precious about one’s words. I feel the same way about the criticism. You’re not going to break! It’s pretty tough to stick it out, to do this. So, get used to it! People are going to not like it. Okay! You’ll live. So, it’s bad. Okay. You’ll live! They said ‘no.’ You know what? Everyone gets said ‘no’ to a thousand times. If that is really something that you can’t tolerate, this may not work.

Source for image: jenniferegan.com

If you want to learn more about Jennifer, visit: www.jenniferegan.com.

by Amanda Patterson

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