In a conversation with Lit Hub, writer Cheryl Strayed (Wild) offers her observations on the journey to publication, including her financial struggles and efforts to stay on her path. Strayed says she’s been irked by suggestions that her success came “out of nowhere” after she’d been working for years to develop her career.
“I wasn’t mad for myself, I was mad for the community of writers I feel very much a part of, who all knew me before Wild was published,” she remarked. “I hated that phrasing—out of nowhere. Because it implied that where I was was nowhere. Just because our culture doesn’t recognize most of those 12,000 people who gather at AWP every year doesn’t mean those people aren’t incredibly successful.”
On the craft side, Strayed suggests that writers can unlock their creativity by focusing on a talisman. “A talisman is simply an object that has accumulated meaning for you or your character,” she explains. “And all those things have a story attached to them.” In Strayed’s experience, writers are more forthcoming about themselves when they write through a talismanic focus, as they may unintentionally share more when they believe the story is about an object, rather than themselves.
She also suggests you write about your “darkest teacher,” the person who taught you about pain, difficulty, or ugliness. You may not want to know these things, but you can use them, and you’re probably better for having lived through the experience.
