Letters to a Young Writer

by Colum McCann

Be ready to get ripped to pieces: it happens. Permit yourself anger. Fail. Take pause. Accept the rejections.

A lot can be taken from you—even your life—but not your stories about that life. So this, then, is a word, not without love and respect, to a young writer: write.

To not know exactly where your story is going is a good thing. It may drive you mad for a little while, but there’s worse things than madness: try silence, for instance.

All well and good, young writer—a hero of consciousness indeed—but be aware that this will cost you effort and pain. You will tear your hair out. Grind your teeth. Rinse your heart out again and again. You will think yourself in constant rehearsal for a performance that might never arrive.

every writer will achieve at least one very bad book. Most of us achieve many. But even bad work is an achievement. It is not the end of the world. In fact it’s the natural pattern. You still have to get up the next morning. And the morning after.

that blank page isn’t going anywhere.

Stories are not about plot, they are about language and rhythm and music and style. If you believe in your own story, and write it well, it will find its readers.

You should know that anything good you wrote was entirely accidental. You should be sure that you will never be able to do it again. You should have no idea how you got here and no idea if you will ever do it again. In fact, you should be convinced that you won’t.

Be aware that to be a hero, you might have to be able to be the fool.

In the end, the only things worth doing are the things that might possibly break your heart. Rage on.