Literary Birthday – 18 February – Lisa See

Happy Birthday, Lisa See, born on 18 February 1955.

Lisa See Quotes

1. Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.
2. I knew three things about myself when I was growing up. I never wanted to get married, I didn’t want to have children, and I always wanted to live out of a suitcase.
3. Nu shu means women’s writing. And it was a secret writing system that was invented by women, used by women and kept a secret by women in one very remote county in China for a thousand years. It’s the only language that was invented and used by women to have been found anywhere in the world.
4. The greatest calling of all is to have a literary life.
5. Write 1,000 words a day, five days a week, before you do anything else. At the end of a week, you’ll have twenty pages—a chapter. If you do it first thing in the morning, then you won’t get distracted by all the things that tempt you not to write.
6. Research is my absolute favourite part of the writing process. I LOVE it! I go everywhere my characters go. I eat everything they eat.
7. I usually have an outline, and I write from beginning to end without stopping to edit.
8. Writing straight fiction is much easier than writing mysteries or thrillers. You can’t overlook a single detail. It’s a very tight form, and the pacing is extremely important. Today, straight fiction, especially women’s fiction, has very little plot. It’s just a slice of life with an emotional change. I personally prefer novels that have enough plot that I’m anxious to turn the pages.
9. We’re told that men are strong and brave, but I think women know how to endure, accept defeat, and bear physical and mental agony much better than men.
10. There is no life without death. That is the true meaning of yin and yang.

Lisa See is an American writer and novelist of historical fiction. Her books have been celebrated for their authentic, deeply researched, lyrical stories about Chinese characters and cultures. She is the New York Times bestselling author of Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, The Island of Sea Women, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, Shanghai Girls, China Dolls, and Dreams of Joy, which debuted at #1. Lisa has also written a mystery series and her books have been published in 39 languages. She has also penned the family memoir, On Gold Mountain: The One Hundred Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family. Follow her on Instagram.

Source for Image: Media downloads on website: Photo Credit: Patricia Williams
Source for quotes: Lisa See FAQs

by Amanda Patterson

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