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Write Away

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Overview

Bestselling author Elizabeth George has spent years teaching writing, and in Write Away she shares her knowledge of the creative process. George combines clear, intelligent, and functional advice on fiction writing with anecdotes from her own life, the story of her journey to publication, and inside information on how she meticulously researches and writes her novels. George ' s solid understanding of craft is conveyed in the enticing manner of a true storyteller, making Write Away not only a marvelous, interesting, and informative book but also a glimpse inside the world of a beloved writer.

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Author Information

Bio of Elizabeth George

Elizabeth George was born Susan Elizabeth George in Warren, Ohio. When she was eighteen months old, her family relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area where they lived in what's now part of Silicon Valley but was then the small town of Mountain View. There, she was educated at St. Joseph's Grammar School and Holy Cross High School by the Sisters of the Holy Cross. She began her university education at Foothill Community College in Los Altos Hills, and from there she transferred to and graduated from the University of California in Riverside, California, picking up units along the way at UC Berkeley as well. She also attended California State University at Fullerton, where she was awarded a master's degree in Counseling/Psychology and UC Riverside again where she received a lifetime secondary teaching credential. In 2004, she was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters by California State University at Fullerton.

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Additional Info

Imprint

HarperCollins

Filesize

1.46 MB

Number of Pages

288

eBook ISBN

9780061192623

Excerpt from: Write Away by Elizabeth George

Story Is Character
Am I kidding myself about being a "creative artist"? Can I possibly be a creative artist if I approach this effort in so methodical and left-brained a fashion?

Journal of a Novel,
June 25,1997
A large piece of Plexiglas covers the top of my desk. Beneath this shield, I keep bits and pieces to serve as inspiration or to cheer me up in those moments of bleak despair when I'm wondering why I've taken on one difficult project or another. Among these items I have a copy of John Steinbeck's letter to Herbert Sturz on the subject of The Grapes of Wrath -- I find his comments about critics particularly smile-producing -- as well as pictures of my dog, of myself grinning inanely alongside a wax effigy of Richard III from Madame Tussaud's waxworks in London, and several quotations from writers on one subject or another. One of those writers is Isaac Bashevis Singer who, in an interview with Richard Burgis in 1978, said the following:

When people come together -- let's say they come to a little party or something -- you always hear them discuss character. They will say this one has a bad character, this one has a good character, this one is a fool, this one is a miser. Gossip makes the conversation. They all analyze character. It seems that the analysis of character is the highest human entertainment. And literature does it, unlike gossip, without mentioning real names.

The writers who don't discuss character but problems -- social problems or any problems -- take away from literature its very essence. They stop being entertaining. We, for some reason, always love to discuss and discover character. This is because each character is different and human character is the greatest of puzzles.