Secrets of Successful Authors

The writer’s life is full of challenge and discouragement, rejection and struggle. The famous authors we admire surely never went through this much, we may think to ourselves. But what if they did? Then maybe there’s hope for us. Let’s consider what a few well-known authors endured before becoming famous. What are their work habits, and how did they keep going? How old were they when they started? It might surprise you.

Work Habits of the Famous

For a time, Maya Angelou’s work pattern was to rent a hotel room and go every morning to write from about 6:30 am to 12:30 or 1:00pm. Stephen Pressfield has a daily ritual which includes donning lucky shoes and invoking the Muse. He sits in the same spot every day and writes until he starts making typos, and that’s it, about four hours. To him, the number of pages or the quality doesn’t matter at that point, he has beaten Resistance. Stephen King aims for 2,000 words a day, about ten pages, which can take him anywhere from a few hours of the morning or until suppertime, depending on how it goes. But then there’s Victor Hugo, who insisted his valet hide his clothes, so he couldn’t get dressed until he had completed his first draft. If only I had a valet….

From Rejection to Fame

After all the hours dedicated to writing them, some of the world’s most successful books were rejected dozens of times before finally being published. For example, The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, was rejected sixty times before becoming wildly successful and being made into a blockbuster movie. Stephen King’s Carrie was rejected thirty times until he threw it into the garbage. His wife retrieved it, and it became the first of fifty worldwide best sellers. Beatrix Potter was rejected so many times that she decided to self-publish. Rejection, no matter how excruciating, might not mean your book is trash. Instead, it might indicate you haven’t found the right publisher yet, and that publisher just might be you.

It’s Never Too Late

Okay, you may think, but most famous writers got started young, and I’m not young. It’s too late for me. Let’s see about that. (And if you are young, Jan Karon has advice for you below.) Many famous writers began later in life. Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes, got started at age sixty-six, and Laura Ingalls Wilder at age 64, with her ever-popular Little House on the Prairie series.

Jan Karon didn’t start the Mitford series until after she quit her job at an advertising agency at age fifty. She gave this advice to would-be writers in an interview with CBN:

If God has given you a dream, you’d better get cracking because He wants you to use it. That’s why He gives them to us in the first place…. We can’t say, “I’m too fat,” or “I’m too thin,” or “My husband wouldn’t like it,” or “My kids wouldn’t like it,” or “I’m too old,” or “I’m too young,” or “I’m too tired.” Just get moving!

CBN interview by Belinda Elliot

Thank you so much, Jan Karon, I think I will!

In 1996, Susan E. Brooks moved to Mozambique, Africa, with her family where she taught art and English at an international high school and started journaling about her adventures. Twenty-six of the stories of struggles and victories in Mozambique are now published on her blog in a series entitled “Mozambican Odyssey.” She has since lived in Portugal, Ghana, and Cyprus, as well as in her home state of Kentucky, USA.

Meanwhile, nine grandchildren have come along, and she is inspired to write and illustrate a children’s book for each of them. Susan has self-published four children’s books so far.