A year ago when my wife and I traveled to New York City, I took along several books, as usual. One of the titles that made to journey from Marietta, Ohio, to Brooklyn was How to Write: Advice and Reflections, (Quill, $12). I didn't find time to open the paperback edition then, and here it is, a year later, and I just came across this wonderful book by Richard Rhodes a second time.
One of life's little complications is the fact that no matter how one tries, there's never enough time to read all the books that continue to pile up on a list that stretches beyond the imagination. But I regret not having rediscovered How to Write until nearly a year past its publication date. However, you should still find this little volume in the writing section of any major book store, and I'm sure it will be available from its publisher for years to come.
Rhodes, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb, offers wise words to writers who hesitate to approach the note pad, typewriter, or computer screen. As Rhodes emphatically announces, "Fear stops most people from writing, not lack of talent. . . We need stories to live, all of us. We live by story. Yours enlarges the circle."
Rhodes reports he learned to write at age 14 by penning love letters to a girl he met at a church camp. He believes one's choice of equipment doesn't matter "so long as it helps you write." He notes that Henry James eventually became so at ease with writing that he composed his novels and stories in his head, then dictated them to a male secretary. "(T)he pages the secretary pulled from the typewriter needed hardly any editing at all," he reports.
For me, as well as Rhodes, using a computer word processing program has increased productivity, by watching "the words roll out in line across the page like soldiers filing onto a parade ground for inspection."
In this succinct, gloriously readable book, Rhodes briefly touches on the essentials of becoming a writer. He devotes chapters to voices, research, editing, business, and other main cogs in becoming a published writer.
While writing can be a satisfying avocation, I agree with the 18th century lexicographer Samuel Johnson, who said, "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money."
With the great advice and calming words of Richard Rhodes, even the most reticent should be able to conquer the fear and begin writing for others. It's a great gig.
As a critic for The Washington Post wrote, "Buy this book, buy it. It's a handbook on how to live."
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