Just don’t think it has anything to do with creativity.ħ. I’m not saying, “Don’t go there.” Everybody goes there. Digging deep for material, you find your dog’s scrotum and your grandmother’s vibrator, along with cheesy fantasy tropes from some movie you secretly loved when you were 14. If you’re used to short, controlled forms, the mandate to stretch out will bring all sorts of unpleasantness to the surface.

Before starting on your debut novel, get your first novel out of your system. No matter how perfect they are, no matter what prestigious magazine publishes them, each one will be 200 pages too short to pay the rent.ģ. Don’t write short stories and poems unless you have a trust fund. Learn skills not everybody knows, like court reporting or Japanese, so you can get part-time work at a decent wage. If you’re in school, don’t waste time in English courses. Before you commit to writing as a career, make sure you’re not simply agoraphobic or depressed.Ģ. So are a lot of things-police work, diplomacy, counseling the needy, etc. Are you drawn to fiction writing because it can be performed cheaply at home? Are you an alcoholic looking for an excuse to sleep late? Writing is for compulsive storytellers. It flows with a narrative spin only the singular Zink could pull off - including both authentic and fictional versions of characters from Shats’s life and work such as the author herself.A fast-moving portrait of expat artists, authors, and academics on fellowships at the Villa Romana in Florence, European Story for Avner Shats centers on a trio of three indelible characters: an Israeli writer vaguely reminiscent of Shats, a German specialist in ancient lint, and a beautiful and fraudulent Russian performance artist.Demonstrating the hallmarks of Zink’s unique talent, Private Novelist is an intimate look into this acclaimed novelist’s early work that will please her coterie of admirers and further burnish her lustrous reputation.1. Now, this tongue-in-cheek homage is available to Nell’s growing readership for the first time, accompanied by a second dazzling and imaginative work that breathes - at Shats’s request - the perfumed air of the Old Europe and stars a figure very much like Shats.Sailing Towards the Sunset by Avner Shats is Zink’s faux-translation of Shats’s 1998 novel Lashut El Hashkia ('Sailing Towards the Sunset'). Unable to read his Hebrew, she was forced to start from scratch.

Years ago, Nell Zink resolved to write a book for her friend, the Israeli novelist Avner Shats, that would mirror his remarkable style.

Private novelist by nell zink