As a society, we often celebrate tortured and struggling artists who finally make it big despite their obstacles, and yet we don’t often examine the flip side of this, which is that the vast majority of tortured and struggling artists don’t actually make it. We tend to encourage everyone to write (Person 1 tells an interesting story, Person 2 says “Wow, you should write a book about that”), and there are very few people out there willing to tell any writer they don’t have what it takes and should probably try pursuing something else with their time. I’m guilty of this as well – who am I to say whether or not someone will or won’t be published?

– Nathan Bransford, literary agent

I’m with Nathan. Who am I to say someone will or won’t be published? I wouldn’t want to be responsible for discouraging the next Jane Austen or John Steinbeck. However, there is a certain naivete with beginning writers about what it takes to have a successful writing career. (I know this from my own naivete when starting out.) After years of learning the craft, you can be incredibly talented, and still not have the publishing gods smile upon you. Or you can publish with mediocre results.

So what do you think? Should we encourage everyone to write, especially when the odds are long and the cost to a personal life is sometimes high? I’d love to hear from you.

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How interesting can a person be who spends a lot of her working hours staring out a window? – S.E. Hinton

I thought you might enjoy this author interview from one of the blogs I subscribe to by Nathan Bransford. Ms. Hinton doesn’t grant interviews that often and this is a good one.

Interview With S.E. Hinton by Nathan Bransford, Literary Agent with Curtis Brown, LTD

Posted: 14 May 2009 08:00 AM PDT

I had the immense pleasure of meeting S.E. Hinton in Tulsa last month, and not only did I discover that she is a faithful lurker around these parts, she very graciously agreed to an interview. Her debut novel, THE OUTSIDERS, which she wrote when she was sixteen, revolutionized the children’s book world upon its publication with its realism and immediacy, a stylistic shift that is still reverberating to this day. She is the author of six other much-beloved novels, a picture book, and her new linked story collection, SOME OF TIM’S STORIES, was recently released in paperback, so please check that out.

You grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and still call it home to this day. What does it mean to you as a place, and what it is it about Tulsa that keeps you there?

Well, Tulsa is home, I was born here, still have family here, have friends I go back forty years with here. It’s a city that supports the arts, it’s easy to get around, it’s easy to work here. Tulsa gets the same Internet, same magazines, same cable as larger cities, we have a strong film community that brings us the best foreign and indie movies.

I like having a history with the place I live, seeing what is changing and what stays the same.

And the restaurants here are GREAT.

I would have to agree about Tulsan restaurants. “The Outsiders” is sometimes credited with creating and popularizing Young Adult fiction (YA) as a genre. Did you set out to write something new and different when you were writing? What was your mindset?

I guess in a way I did set out to write something new and different with The Outsiders, because I wanted to read something that dealt with teen life as I saw it. There wasn’t anything realistic for teenagers to read back then; I was through with the horse books, not ready for a lot of adult books, couldn’t stand the “Mary Sue Goes To the Prom” books, so one of the main reasons why I wrote it was to read it. Also, I loved to write, and had been writing since grade school, and I was angry about the social divisions in my very large high school (Will Rogers High).

Something I never knew about “The Outsiders” until we met is that even though you wrote it when you were only 16, it was actually your third novel. What did you learn about writing when you wrote those first two novels? What happened to them?

Like everyone else, I learned from my mistakes. I think every book is practice for the next one. At that time I still needed a lot of practice so I wisely never tried to publish them….

Read the rest of the interview here. S.E. Hinton talks about her books that have been made into movies; Marilyn Marlow, her children’s book agent for many years; her writing process; and advice to writers just starting out. Let me know what you think and if this was helpful to you.

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