"I
doubt if my dear, encouraging high-school English teachers
would approve of my
writing process today. Fifty years ago, when I began to write,
I dutifully tried to outline a story, a task I found so tiresome
I quickly abandoned
it and simply wrote. I often begin a book in the middle and work
out a beginning and an end. This method leads to untidy manuscripts.
Revising,
however, is the part of writing I enjoy most, and when I can
reduce a page to a paragraph, I know my story is headed in
the right direction.
"I write
in longhand on yellow, lined paper. I write on every third
line to leave room for additions. When the manuscript
is finished, I fight
my enemy, the typewriter, to produce a legible copy for a
good typist."
--Beverly
Cleary
Source:
Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2006. Reproduced in
Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson
Gale. 2006. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC |
