As Carolyn See says, writing guides are like preachers on Sundaythere may be a lot of them, but you cant have too many, and theres always an audience of the faithful. And while Making a Literary Life is ostensibly a book that teaches you how to write, it really teaches you how to make your interior life into your exterior life, how to find and join that community of like-minded souls youre sure is out there somewhere.Carolyn See distills a lifetime of experience as novelist, memoirist, critic, and creative-writing professor into this marvelously engaging how-to book. Partly the nuts and bolts of writing (plot, point of view, character, voice) and partly an inspirational guide to living the life you dream of, Making a Literary Life takes you from the decision to become a writer to three months after the publication of your first book. A combination of writing and life strategies (do not tell everyone around you how you yearn to be a writer; send a charming note to someone you admire in the industry five days a week, every week, for the rest of your life; find the perfect characters right in front of you), Making a Literary Life is for people not usually considered part of the literary loop: the nonEast Coasters, the secret scribblers. With sagacity, a magical sense of humor, and an abiding belief in the possibilities offered to ordinary people living ordinary lives, Carolyn See has summed up her lifes work in a book so beguiling, irreverent, and giddily inspiring that you wont even realize its changing your life until it already has.From the Hardcover edition.