Play sports for the trophies. Make art so your dad will love you. Write a novel so that you can put "New York Times Bestselling Author" on the website you haven't built yet. It's all about external validation, guys. Guys? GUYS?!?! I post about my process and vaguely literary stuff on Substack: https://belowthefray.substack.com/ Thumbnail illustration by Andy Alvez: https://www.instagram.com/andyalvez -- Quotations -- Susan Sontag's "A writer is someone who pays attention to the world" is from her interview in The Paris Review: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1505/the-art-of-fiction-no-143-susan-sontag The waiter line is from Raymond Chandler's excellent The High Window. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Window Kerouac quote from his poem "Belief & Technique for Modern Prose." https://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/kerouac-technique.html James Baldwin's story of seeing the city in the puddle from his interview in The Paris Review: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2994/the-art-of-fiction-no-78-james-baldwin -- Clips -- Dua Lipa In Conversation With Hernan Diaz, Author Of Trust: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRAKWYpOfcs&ab_channel=Service95 Daniel Green interviews his agent, Seth Fishman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH6y1jNuZR0&t=444s&ab_channel=DanielGreene Sunyi Dean on Publishing Rodeo Episode 1: Intros and Spilling Secrets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_P9SLcMq_Y&ab_channel=PublishingRodeo Dua Lipa In Conversation With Ocean Vuong, Author Of On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W7DmKjzryU&ab_channel=Service95 Nathan Englander talks with Zadie Smith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcYHIhRstVc&ab_channel=ElectricCereal Donna Tartt on Charlie Rose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oo-wNuP9tU&ab_channel=ManufacturingIntellect David Foster Wallace on Charlie Rose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3qjCvkQWvs&ab_channel=ManufacturingIntellect John Updike: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ITf1LpwZ7U&t=340s&ab_channel=UWVideo Sally Rooney on The Interview (New York Times Podcasts): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3OcgDhOYSM&ab_channel=NewYorkTimesPodcasts UCLA professor Richard Walter on Film Courage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tT_GjjlCLs&ab_channel=FilmCourage Wera reads Cormac McCarthy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM0Gpdt0OQI&ab_channel=Wera Charles Bukowski: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo9CQT3hXu8&t=74s&ab_channel=Southsayer Billy Crystal in Throw Momma from the Train: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_ShnJnMcvQ&ab_channel=AmazonMGMStudios Kendrick Lamar & Rick Rubin Have an Epic Conversation | GQ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lPD5PtqMiE&ab_channel=GQ Novelist Hernan Diaz | Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w00aLDYIhDA&t=391s&ab_channel=IdahoPublicTelevision Elif Batuman | False Starts | Granta Magazine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaFM3kZflWA&ab_channel=GrantaMagazine The NeverEnding Story: https://youtu.be/YKGYgFPAP14?si=u52xT_AgIGXfeCY5 Marx Brothers mirror scene from Duck Soup: https://youtu.be/VKTT-sy0aLg?si=FGBf-b62VyP008_p -- Paintings -- The Adoration of the Kings by Jan Gossaert - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoration_of_the_Kings_(Gossaert) The Lament for Icarus by Herbert Draper - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Herbert_Draper_-_The_Lament_for_Icarus_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg The Fall of Icarus by Jacob Peter Gowy - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gowy-icaro-prado.jpg The Magdalen Reading by Rogier van der Weyden - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magdalen_Reading Saint Jerome Reading in a Landscape by Giovanni Bellini - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bellini,_Giovanni_-_Saint_Jerome_reading_in_a_landscape_-_National_Gallery.jpg The Café Royal by William Orpen - https://www.pubhist.com/w54901 At the Moulin Rouge by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Moulin_Rouge Rouen Cathedral series by Claude Monet - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouen_Cathedral_%28Monet_series%29# Kit’s Writing Lesson by Robert Braithwaite Martineau - https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_Braithwaite_Martineau_(1826-1869)_-_Kit%27s_Writing_Lesson_-_T00011_-_Tate.jpg 00:00 Intro 1:06 Getting published 3:19 Books have changed our lives 5:16 Becoming sensitive to the world 11:29 Wrestling with words