Not too long ago I ran a post I called “Trains, Planes, and Pen Names (and Practice).” It is about authors—well known, award-winning authors—who, before they became well known award winners, did all sorts of writing to pay the bills. And, not coincidentally, honed their writing chops. These writers were fairly open about the general facts—but that early work was done under a pen name.

I’d originally called this article “Your Sordid Past” because these authors were not interested in revealing the details of their early work. But here’s one who does.

Ann Patchett. You know I love her. (See “The Demise of Bookstores,” “Ann Patchett Is My Hero,” “Ann Patchett Is Still My Hero,” and “The Bookstore Strikes Back.” I’m not done writing about Ann’s work, I have notes sketched out—but that article isn’t finished yet.)

I love her even more for being so straightforward about her writing journey, which she discusses in detail in the introduction to her collection of essays—all published elsewhere—This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage.* She’d been teaching, and then waiting tables. But … “All I knew for certain,” she says, “is I had to figure out how to both eat and write.” The latter wasn’t progressing the way she’d wished.

And then inspiration dawned:

I had published several short stories in Seventeen magazine, and had asked my editor … if I could have a nonfiction assignment as well. The economics were easy enough to figure: Seventeen ran one short story a month, twelve stories a year, and if I was doing my absolute best I could never hope for more than one or two of those spots. A writer of nonfiction, on the other hand, could publish an article in every issue, sometimes multiple articles in a single issue. I had finally identified a job that I more or less knew how to do that would be neither mentally nor physically exhausting. …

Seventeen magazine, where I never had an office and rarely visited, was the site of my apprenticeship; I learned how to write an essay there [and how to work with an editor] … Whereas fiction was singularly mine—I would never have changed a short story to reflect an editor’s experience—nonfiction was collectively ours. I readjusted the slant of an article to satisfy the vision of various editors, or spiced up the action to meet the attention span of the readers. I saw my best paragraphs cut … because the art department wanted more space for their illustration. I sliced a piece in half because an ad was suddenly dropped …. I was learning how to work for a magazine by shaping my writing, yes, but I was also shaping myself: it was my aim to be flexible and fast, the go-to girl. …

Magazine work was an uncertain business—assignments were killed on a whim, checks were late, and there was always someone who owed me expenses—but I never lost sight of how much easier it was than busing tables or grading papers. The years spent in the freelance trenches eventually paid off: I would go on to have some remarkable assignments. I’ve toured the great opera houses of Italy, gone on a mock honeymoon in Hawaii, driven an RV across the American West, all on someone else’s dime. Whenever people ask how they can get those same kinds of assignments, I recommend what worked for me: eight years writing freelance articles for Seventeen. (Emphasis mine.)

This revelation delights me. And pay attention to this tidbit of information:

My fiction, which had for so many years failed to provide me with a living wage, was suddenly able to buy me a house after the publication of Bel Canto in 2001 … I was free to quit my day job, and that was, of course, the point at which I realized how much I liked my day job.

Bel Canto (2001), as you know, was Patchett’s fourth published novel; her first, The Patron Saint of Liars, came out in 1992. Authors take note: that’s how long it took for her fiction to become profitable.

Take note, also, that she’s not hiding anything. The introduction to This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage is an education, and Patchett continues that instruction in “The Getaway Car,” one of the long-form essays inside.

Why is it that we understand playing the cello will require work, but we attribute writing to the magic of inspiration? Chances are, any child who stays with an instrument for more than two weeks has some adult making her practice, and any child who sticks with it longer than that does so because she understands that practice makes her play better and that there is a deep, soul-satisfying pleasure in improvement. If a person of any age picked up the cello for the first time and said, “I’ll be playing Carnegie Hall next month!” you would pity their delusion, yet beginning fiction writers all across the country polish up their best efforts and send them off to The New Yorker. Perhaps you’re thinking here that playing an instrument is not an art in itself but an interpretation of the composer’s art, but I stand by my metaphor. The art of writing comes way down the line, as does the art of interpreting Bach. Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art you must master the craft. If you want to write, practice writing. Practice it for hours a day, not to come up with a story you can publish, but because you long to learn how to write well, because there is something that you alone can say. Write the story, learn from it, put it away, write another story. Think of a sink pipe filled with sticky sediment. The only way to get clean water is to force a small ocean through the tap. Most of us are full up with bad stories, boring stories, self-indulgent stories, searing works of unendurable melodrama. We must get all of them out of our system in order to find the good stories that may or may not exist in the freshwater underneath. (Emphasis mine.)

She goes on to say, “Does this sound like a lot of work without any guarantee of success? Well, yes, but it also calls into question our definition of success.”

Listen to her, kids. The lessons here are practice, patience, and perseverance. And, I think, preparedness. As in: be prepared to practice, to be patient, and to persevere.

* As a side note, she has quite a dry sense of humor. I laughed out loud in bed reading this one.

Note: I transcribed these two passages from pages 2 to 4 and 28 to 29 in my first edition hard cover copy of This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, published in 2013 by HarperCollins Publishers.

Tweet: Here’s a generous author who spells out what she did on her path to success.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”