Inside chapter three

Emily St. John Mandel and Meg Wolitzer on being writers in the real world. Plus, what will become of creative careers as artificial intelligence expands?

Paying subscribers can hear me read this aloud here or on any podcast app.

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I mentioned last time that writing my book – In Writing: Conversations on Inspiration, Perspiration and Creative Desperation – meant getting hold of some brilliant interviewees who I hadn’t yet spoken to on my podcast, and two of those writers pop up on the page I want to share today: the novelists Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven; Sea of Tranquility; The Glass Hotel) and Meg Wolitzer (The Interestings; The Female Persuasion; The Wife).

Chapter Three of my book is called ‘What’s So Hard About Writing?’, which is the question I always fear while I’m complaining. It’s a fair question, and if you read my book, you’ll get an abundant and polyphonous answer – covering everything from novelist Holly Bourne’s ‘My first drafts are garbage,’ to poet Will Harris’s ‘My main experience of writing is of constant shame,’ to filmmaker Ruben Östlund’s ‘Every day I feel completely devastated because it’s so awful.’

Readers have told me they’ve found it reassuring to know that even very accomplished writers have these feelings, and it’s been a huge comfort to me too. These lines from my intro to Chapter Three sum up one of the book’s most important messages:

Every writer, however talented or experienced, finds the process hard. If you struggle to write, that says nothing at all about who you are – except that you’re a person willing to engage seriously with a craft.

But the page I want to show you today starts with Mandel. She’s just explained that the lightning-strike success of Station Eleven has unexpectedly allowed her to make a living from writing literary fiction.