"Faulkner, You Don't Have a Story to Tell!"

To get you ultra-ready and inspired for NaNoWriMo, literary expert Celia Blue Johnson—author of the new book Dancing with Mrs. Dalloway: Stories of Inspiration Behind Great Works of Literature —has a few behind-the-scenes anecdotes to share about those classic novels we know and love. (Here's Part 1.)

No, you didn't misread the heading above. William Faulkner's publisher sent him a rejection letter that would prompt most writers to pick a new career path. Even worse: Faulkner thought he had created a masterpiece. The book was Flags in the Dust and it was written on the heels of Faulkner's second book, Mosquitoes. It wasn't long after Faulkner submitted the manuscript to Horace Liveright of Boni and Liveright that he received a negative response, culminating in the following sentence: "My chief objection is that you don't seem to have any story to tell and I contend that a novel should tell a story and tell it well." Surprisingly, Faulkner didn't quit. With his professional career at a standstill, he decided to write for himself. Faulkner recalled the career-altering moment: "One day I seemed to shut a door between me and all publishers' addresses and book lists. I said to myself, Now I can write." And he wrote The Sound and the Fury, his best known work today.

After you've toiled away on your manuscripts during National Novel Writing Month, you are going to ask the inevitable question: "What next?" If our literary heroes could tell us one thing, I think they'd say, "Don't give up. We didn't." Then they'd add, "And don't let people get you down." Every writer must steel themselves against overwhelming opposition. Faulkner wasn't the only literary star who had to overcome critical odds (and critics come in all different forms, as you'll see).

Margaret Mitchell had a huge stack of paper that was gathering dust in her closet in Atlanta, Georgia. Harold Latham, an editor visiting from New York, caught wind of the epic novel, but Mitchell refused to give him the manuscript. It wasn't ready (and might never be). The same week, an up-and-coming writer found out about the novel and exclaimed to Mitchell: "Really I wouldn't take you for the type who would write a successful book. You know you don't take life seriously enough to be a novelist." Her dander up, Mitchell handed her unfinished manuscript to Latham. He had to buy an extra suitcase to carry it home, but it was worth the money. It wasn't long before he made an offer for Gone with the Wind.

If you want to free yourself completely from critics, then follow in Virginia Woolf's footsteps. Woolf and her husband launched Hogarth Press so that they could publish her experimental novels along with their friends' poetry and prose. Woolf wrote Mrs. Dalloway for Hogarth in a storeroom beside the printing press, which was located in the basement of her house. Woolf no doubt heard the bustle of work in the background, but tucked away in that enclosed space, she was free. In the margins of her manuscript, she wrote: "A delicious idea comes to me that I will write anything I want to write."