13 Ways of Looking at the Novel: Part Twelve

12.  As raw ambition.

Writing a novel takes some chutzpah.  The road is long and lonesome, even with support of family or writers’ workshops, and there is no guarantee of publication at the end of your labors.  Be ambitious in your art.

Love the creative process
Hold back nothing
Entertain yourself

Imitation works only some of the time.  You can try to write the next Harry Potter or Twilight, but it is impossible to know what the next big thing is going to be and to finish a novel in time to meet that incipient demand.  Better to write what you want to write and hope that there are readers out there.

Read, read, read: the New Yorker, Granta, literary magazines, novels in/out of your genre, cereal boxes, blogs, billboards, everything and anything.  This is the stuff of the wordy world.