Literary Birthday – 28 May – Meg Wolitzer

Happy Birthday, Meg Wolitzer, born 28 May 1959.

Seven Quotes

My being a writer and playing Scrabble are connected. If I have a good writing day, I’ll take a break and play online Scrabble. My favourite word as a child was ‘carrion’, before I knew what it meant. I later created crossword puzzles, which was a lot about puns, and how words would create these strange, strange things.
The road to every novel’s life is so different and never what you expect it to be.
… you have to actually love writing, because the gratifications can be few and far between. But when they do come, these gratifications, they are… gratifying! You need to love the work itself, and to really be excited by writing, and comfortable being alone all day, and trusting your own instincts. For me, a good writing day is tremendously exciting, and provides a hefty dose of endorphins. And a bad writing day…well, you don’t want to know about it.
Charlotte’s Web, which I read sitting on my mother’s lap, was the most emotional experience: that was when I made the leap from seeing how to untangle words to realising how books both contain and convey strong feelings.
I can’t listen to anything when I work. I can’t have any stimulation whatsoever. I can’t even have rings on my fingers — they’re too distracting.
I am obsessed with playing Scrabble. It relaxes me between fits of writing, and I play online, in a bizarro world of anonymous, competitive players. It’s my version of smoking or drinking — a guilty pleasure. The thing is, I love words, anagrams, wordplay, cryptic crossword puzzles, and anything to do with the language.
It’s a very important thing to me to have a title when I’m writing.

Meg Wolitzer is an American author. She is best known for writing The Wife, The Ten-Year Nap, The Uncoupling, and The Interestings. She is also the author of the young adult novel Belzhar.