The Writer's Book of Hope by Ralph Keyes

Author:Ralph Keyes [Keyes, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466827899
Published: 2012-07-24T16:00:00+00:00

{ III }

BEYOND FRUSTRATION

• 8 •

Encouragers

However tough the peasant in his heart, every writer needs people who believe in him, give him a shoulder to cry on, and value what he values.

John Gardner

So many people took an interest in my work early on and encouraged me that I almost can’t believe my good luck.

Ann Beattie

Early in her career Eudora Welty got the letter every fledgling writer dreams of getting. Diarmuid Russell, a literary agent in New York, had heard promising reports about Welty from an editor at Doubleday. Might he represent her? “Yes—,” she responded, “be my agent.” The two worked together for more than three decades, until Russell’s death in 1973. With her agent’s help, Eudora Welty eventually became such a literary icon that we forget how many years she spent having each and every story returned from publishers big and small. During this discouraging period, the continued reassurance of Diarmuid Russell was virtually the only thing that kept her writing. A few months after signing up with him, and before he had sold any of her stories, Welty wrote Russell, “That there are people like you … in the world fills me with the most opposite feeling to discouragement.” In the midst of a long, frustrating period when the Mississippian was considered only a regional author of middling promise, Russell kept his client’s spirits up. “I am sorry I can’t send you money yet,” Russell wrote her at one point, “or give you good news but all I can say is don’t worry, for anyone who writes as well as you do is certain to be all right.” Russell repeatedly assured his author that it was just a matter of time before her talent was recognized. And he was right. Their relationship grew so close that an entire book has been written about it: Author and Agent, by Michael Kreyling.

Like Welty, successful writers routinely cite specific individuals—friends, colleagues, teachers, spouses, agents, editors—who at some critical juncture gave them the reassurance they needed to keep writing. I call these people encouragers. Especially when your work hasn’t been published and you have no idea if it ever will be published, encouragers are invaluable. They are the benign twin of discouragers, the kindly Jekyll to those folks’ disparaging Hyde. Encouragers can be found in many guises and in unexpected places. Jay Parini got encouragement from the affable patrons of Lou’s Diner in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he wrote three books, and from the restaurant’s owner himself. “I don’t think any would have made it into print without Lou’s hospitality,” said Parini. When she was an office clerk with a novel in the works, Terry McMillan found encouragement in the radio studio of Irwin Gonshak, a retired schoolteacher in Flushing, Queens, who hosted a weekly hour-long show devoted to aspiring writers. A therapist gave E. Lynn Harris the reassurance he needed to leave his job as a computer salesman and write full-time. During the harrowing years when he struggled to write his

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