“Nothing any good isn’t hard.” What is the secret of great writing? For David Foster Wallace, it was about fun . For Henry Miller, about discovery . Susan Sontag saw it as self-exploration . Many literary greats anchored it to their daily routines . And yet, the answer remains elusive and ever-changing. In the fall of 1938, Radcliffe College sophomore Frances Turnbull sent her latest short story to family friend F. Scott Fitzgerald . His response, found in F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters ( public library ) — the same volume that gave us Fitzgerald’s heartwarming fatherly advice and his brilliantly acerbic response to hate mail — echoes Anaïs Nin’s insistence upon the importance of emotional investment in writing and offers some uncompromisingly honest advice on essence of great writing: November 9, 1938 Dear Frances: I’ve read the story carefully and, Frances, I’m afraid the price for doing professional work is a good deal higher than you are prepared to pay ...
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