Literary Birthday – 14 December – Nancy Thayer

Happy Birthday, Nancy Thayer, born 14 December 1943.

Five Quotes

1. It’s never too late – in fiction or in life – to revise.
2. I write every day except Sunday. I wake around 7, make a cup of coffee, and go to my study. I work for about 5 hours, and I return in the afternoon to answer email, etc. When I’m in the red hot middle of a book, it drives me crazy to have to stop, but I’ve found over the years that anything I write after about 5 hours I ended up tossing.
3. If you’re a writer, you love solitude.  But you need comrades. Join a writer’s community.  Attend workshops. It will help your writing and keep you sane—well, relatively sane!
4. Because we are an island, we are more aware of our place in the community. We are moved and touched by both the good and the bad around us. There is more of a sense of belonging to a human group, and I don’t think this is quantifiable.
5. I don’t actually get writer’s block—but I do delete lots of material. I find I’m always able to write, but a lot of it is just awful and gets deleted, or I go down the wrong path and have to start over. I write. Then I have to be sure to let it ‘cool’, then I read it critically, and rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.

Nancy Thayer is an American novelist who has written twenty-three books. Her novels include  Summer House, Stepping, Beachcombers,  and Three Women At The Water’s Edge.

Source for Image of author

by Amanda Patterson

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