Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 April 1916 — HOW ONE NOVELIST WROTE [ARTICLE]

HOW ONE NOVELIST WROTE

Frank Norris Worked Only Three Hours at a Stretch, but Claimed He Worked Every Day. Frank Norris, the well-known author of “The Pit,” “The Octopus” and “Vandover and the Brute,” once sent a letter to Ward Macauley, the Detroit book seller, in answer to certain general questions about Norris’ writing. “Don’t believe fiction writer should shut himself up in his profession," the letter says in part. “Novels can’t be written from the closet or study. You’ve got to live your stuff. Believe novelists of all people should take interest in contemporary movements, politics, international affairs, the big things in the world. “I write with great difficulty, but have managed somehow to accomplish forty short stories (all published in fugitive fashion ) and five novels within the last three years, and a lot of special unsigned articles. Believe my forte is the novel. Don’t like to write, but like having written. “Hate the effort of driving pen from line to line, work only three hours a day, but work every day. Believe in blunt, crude Anglo-Saxon words. Sometimes spend half an hour trying to get the right combination of one-half dozen words. Never rewrite stuff; do all hard work at first writing, only revise —very lightly—in typewritten copy."