Stuart Brody, Winner of the Grateful American Book Prize, Talks About the Writing Process

Stuart Brody: The writing process is complicated, everybody knows that. There are a lot of books out there, and some of them are very good. You can read the books and all the practice advice, but ultimately you have to design it for yourself. The reason I’m spending time saying that is that it doesn’t necessarily matter if you write every single day. It’s not critical that you be in a writing group. What’s critical is that, throughout the day, even if you’re not writing, you’re aware of the connections that you’re making that you never made before. Sometimes it’ll form, it’ll come as a piece of dialogue and you go, oh, I got to have a character doing that. That’s perfect. Or a scene will unfold, like that’s where the character should be. You know, ultimately, the gift of writing and the art of writing is dependent upon and connected to the place within yourself where you truly know who you are. You start with something, you build, you tease it out, you bring in characters, and you don’t rush it. You never rush. You never rush writing; you rush writing, you’re finished.

Narrator: This author interview was produced through a partnership of the Grateful American Foundation and WETA. For more author interviews, please visit AdLit.org.