...and there was an article about a Ms. McCall. I think I read part of her book on Trudeau with Stephen Clarkson. Anyway, a lot of the article talks about her writing talent. Reading it brought to mind two discussions I had with people who were encouraging me to write. One was an old friend of our family in London. I told him I wanted to write fiction. He hadn't read anything I had written but he straight off told me that all it takes is practice; Somerset Maugham wasn't very good to begin with but he worked at it and got good enough. Listening to this strange encouragement, all of my notions of natural genius with regard to writing melted away and I thus began to look at writing as a noble drudgery.
My second encounter with advice was with a friend of my father's last year who heard I like to write. He and his wife invited me for dinner and once again he cut to the chase and told me (as if he were reading my mind then) that if I want to write columns for papers, I should just keep trying; don't give up if one paper rejects me. He had examples of his own experiences getting his foot in the door with various papers.
This morning, among so many other things I am pondering, I am keeping these two people and Ms. McCall in my head as I open the hallowed document once again for another shot at working a plot.
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