I love writing advice from rich and successful writers. Their writing space is beautiful and organized, they are disciplined, and their habits are inspired. The work is everything, the path is clear. My writing life has never been like that. My life has never been like that.
It’s Trollope’s advice that has echoed with me always. First thing in the morning, absolute discipline. Then off to the day job. I have, regretably, not followed that advice. My writing has been voluminous but undisciplined, and I struggle still. A conversation this week about Valerie Eliot with a young librarian who finds her interesting made me more aware than ever of how much I have that exists nowhere else. I envy Trollope and all those early writers who wrote from start to finish (though Tolstoy wrote many drafts, they did not). Here I am with piles of papers and notes and recordings, as well as draft sections. Diana Athill’s editorial memoir has a helpful passage, about how odd bits sometimes fall into place, as if the writer has been unconsciously gathering and drafting the necessary pieces.