Wednesday Writing Wisdom (33) Margaret Atwood

"You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there’s no free lunch. Writing is work. It’s also gambling. You don’t get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ­essentially you’re on your own. ­Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don’t whine."

                     

  Margaret Atwood

       (18 November 1939)

     Curious facts about: 

Her grade 12 English teacher, Miss Bessie Billings, had this to say about one of her early poems: "I can't understand a word of this, dear, so it must be good." Atwood was first published as a poet in 1961 with her collection Double Persephone. She admitted in a 1990 interview with The Paris Review that some of her poems led to novels: “I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems. Then the novel seems a process of working them out.”

 

As a child, she found Snow White traumatizing.

 

She has no particular writing routine, nor does she write every day. She always begins her writing with a pen or pencil and paper.

 She's the inventor of the LongPen, an electronic pen that

lets her sign books remotely.