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The Making of a Writer: Journals, 1961-1963
Gail Godwin was twenty-four years old when she wrote: “I want to be everybody who is great; I want to create everything that has ever been created.” It is a declaration that only a wildly ambitious young writer would make in the privacy of her journal. Now, in The Making of a Writer, Godwin has distilled her early journals, which run from 1961 to 1963, to their brilliant a...more
Paperback, 352 pages
Published
January 30th 2007
by Random House Trade Paperbacks
(first published January 10th 2006)
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The journal covers Godwin's early years in England, when she was working for the U.S. Travel Bureau and struggling to find a balance between her writer life and her social life. She spends a lot of time agonizing about certain men, obsessing about office politics and silly slights, and all of that just made me so grateful I don't have to be 25 again. Ever. And it also made me feel better about my twenties, that I wasn't the only person to waste hours of my life--hours that could have been spe...more
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As a long-standing journal writer myself (though not a writer), I found this fascinating. It's the diary of a writer, certainly - who mines her life and the people she meets for the experiences and words that will inspire her work. But it's also the journal of a recently divorced twenty-something young woman who has embarked on an exciting, frustrating, and rewarding chapter of her life as an expatriate first in Copenhagen, then London. I could not put it down.
This book contains segments from Godwin's journals. It chronicles her experiences as a struggling young writer. It is mostly unedited excerpts, but includes some commentary to help bridge the gaps between entries and to clarify some of the entries. It has some gems for those who are interested in the creative writing process. Her life is interesting too; I did enjoy getting a sense of what the world was like for a career minded woman in the early 60s. However, I also found her behavior to be rec...more
This is a book I'll dip into as a reference and for inspiration. I never was a fan of Godwin's stories but that doesn't always place the letters and journals out of bounds.
I tried starting at the start, but by the time I was 20 pages in I actively disliked her and was bored, to boot. Any successful writer is bound to offer a few nuggets of wisdom, though, and I'll persist--randomly--in this and the second volume, just published.
I tried starting at the start, but by the time I was 20 pages in I actively disliked her and was bored, to boot. Any successful writer is bound to offer a few nuggets of wisdom, though, and I'll persist--randomly--in this and the second volume, just published.
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Gail Kathleen Godwin is an American novelist and short story writer. She has published one non-fiction work, two collections of short stories, and eleven novels, three of which have been nominated for the National Book Award and five of which have made the New York Times Bestseller List.
Godwin's body of work has garnered many honors, including three National Book Award nominations, a G...more
More about Gail Godwin...
Godwin's body of work has garnered many honors, including three National Book Award nominations, a G...more
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