• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Meg Waite Clayton

New York Times Bestselling Author

  • Meg
    • Bio
    • Short Works
    • Meg’s Writing Process
  • Books
    • The Postmistress of Paris
    • The Last Train to London
    • Beautiful Exiles
    • The Race for Paris
    • The Wednesday Sisters
    • The Four Ms. Bradwells
    • The Language of Light
    • The Wednesday Daughters
    • International Editions
  • Events
  • News
  • Videos
  • Bookgroups
    • The Postmistress of Paris
    • The Last Train to London
    • The Race For Paris
    • The Wednesday Sisters
    • The Four Ms. Bradwells
    • The Language of Light
    • The Wednesday Daughters
    • My Bookclubs
  • Writing Tips
    • Tips for Writers
    • How Writers Get Started
    • On Agent Queries
    • Publishing Tips
  • Contact

January 1, 2012 By Meg Waite Clayton

Does This Sound Familiar?

“You start into it, inflamed by an idea, full of hope, full indeed of confidence … If you are properly modest, you will never write at all, so there had to be one delicious moment when you have thought of something, know just how you are going to write it, rush for a pencil, and start in an exercise book buoyed up with exaltation. You then get into difficulties, don’t see your way out, and finally manage to accomplish more or less what you first meant to accomplish, though losing confidence all the time. Having finished it, you know that it is absolutely rotten. A couple of months later you wonder whether it may not be all right after all.”
Is there a writer out there who has not felt this way?
That’s Agatha Christie, from An Autobiography, in which she also describes the rejection of her first novel, and says of a writer who encouraged her early on, “I can hardly express the gratitude I feel to him.”
Happy writing in 2012! May the literary gods be kind to you.
Meg

Share:

Filed Under: Writing Quotes and Other Literary Fun Tagged With: agatha christie

Meg Waite Clayton

Meg Waite Clayton is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of THE LAST TRAIN TO LONDON, a Jewish Book Award finalist based on the true story of the Kindertransport rescue of ten thousand children from Nazi-occupied Europe—and one brave woman who helped them escape. Her six prior novels include the Langum-Prize honored The Race for Paris and The Wednesday Sisters, one of Entertainment Weekly's 25 Essential Best Friend Novels of all time. A graduate of the University of Michigan and its law school, she has also written for the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Forbes, Runners World, and public radio, often on the subject of the particular challenges women face. megwaiteclayton.com

Primary Sidebar

Categories

  • Book Marketing Tips (23)
  • Bookstores worth Browsing (34)
  • Guest Authors (215)
  • How a Book Gets Published (32)
  • Literary Travel (4)
  • Meg's Posts (388)
  • Poetry Tuesdays (24)
  • Publishing Tips (20)
  • Top Writing Tips (10)
  • Uncategorized (6)
  • Writing Quotes and Other Literary Fun (115)
  • Writing Tips (61)

Archives

Footer

Post Archives

Follow Meg on Goodreads

Follow

  • Facebook
  • Instagram

Copyright © 2022 Meg Waite Clayton · Site design: Ilsa Brink