Writers, Unlike Most People, Tell Their Best

I Don't Think You Could Teach Someone To Be A Genius, But You Can Certainly Teach Them To Not Make Rookie Mistakes And To Look At Writing The Way A Writer Looks At Writing, And Not Just The Way A Reader Looks At Writing. There Are A Lot Of Techniques And Skills That Can Be Taught That Will Be Helpful To Anybody, No Matter How Gifted They Are, And I Think Writing Programs Can Be Very Good For People.

I Smoked And Looked Down At The Bottom Of Pittsburgh For A Little While, Watching The Kids Playing Tiny Baseball, The Distant Figures Of Dogs Snatching At A Little Passing Car, A Miniature Housewife On Her Back Porch Shaking Out A Snippet Of Red Rug, And I Made A Sudden, Frightened Vow Never To Become That Small, And To Devote Myself To Getting Bigger And Bigger And Bigger.

Novelist Time Is Reptile Time; Novelists Tend To Be Ruminant And Brooding, Nursers Of Ancient Grievances, Second-guessers, Tuesday Afternoon Quarterbacks, Retrospectators, Endlessly, Like Slumping Hitters, Studying The Film Of Their Old Whiffs.

That's The Best Thing About Writing, When You're In That Zone, You're Porous, Ready To Absorb The Solution.

I Love Richard Yates, His Work, And The Novel, Revolutionary Road. It's A Devastating Novel.