Process: The Writing Lives of Great Authors

by Sarah Stodola

To paraphrase Salman Rushdie, writing can be a grueling, unforgiving business, but even at its worst it’s better than having a regular job.

Kafka was hardly able to separate the writing of literature from life itself.

At some point, thrilling though it may be, the revision has to stop. “There’s a line between revision and fretting, just working it to death,” she says.

He may have found himself ultimately unable to let go of the structure that teaching brought to his life.

Price has always read widely and voraciously, and continues to do so today; “I read so much I can’t tell you what I read on Wednesday,” he has said.

no single influence stands out in those early years, but the cumulative education they offered provided a clear foundation for her own writing career. In the absence of traditional schooling or literary mentors in her life, these books were her teachers, showing Wharton how to go about writing good prose.

Orwell came to denounce Basic English as a negative force on nuanced thinking, then caricatured it with the propagandizing Newspeak.