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Show HOW ONE NOVELIST WROTE Frank Norris Worked Only Three Hours at a Stretch, but Claimed He Worked Every Day. FTank Norris. the well-known author of "The Pit," "The Octopus" and "Van-dover "Van-dover and the Brute," once sent a letter let-ter to Ward Macauley, the Detroit book seller, in answer to certain general gen-eral questions about Norris' writing. "Don't believe fiction writer should shut himself up in his profession," the letter says in part. "Novels can't be written from the closet or study. Y'ou've got to live your stuff. Believe novelists of all people should take interest in-terest in contemporary movements, politics, international affairs, the big things in the world. "I write with great difficulty, but have managed somehow to accomplish accom-plish forty short stories (all published in fugitive fashion) and five novels within the last three years, and a lot of special unsigned articles. Believe my forte is the novel. Don't like to write, but like having written. "Hate the effort of driving pen from line to line, work only three hours a day, but work every day. Believe in blunt, crude Anglo-Saxon words. Sometimes Some-times spend half an hour trying to get the right combination of one-half dozen doz-en words. Never rewrite stuff; do all hard work at first writing, only revise very lightly in typewritten copy." |