Making a Literary Life: Gaze into My Crystal Ball

So often in life, we move forward with heads bowed, not really paying attention to where it is we're going. Our goals are short term: two pages today, finish the manuscript, get an agent, sell the book. We become caught in the monotony, the drudgery of daily habits. Take a moment, think about what you want from your writing, where you want it to bring you and what you want to bring to it. Let time stretch before you, consider what you may be like ten years from now, twenty. What is your literary life?

Lisa Lowry

I would like to be an author that puts a smile on the face of that girl that sits friendless in the middle school cafeteria. I want to tell that boy with the pimples - such awful skin! - that he won't be a teenager forever. Someday he may be called Doctor. Could he graduate from Harvard Law School? I want to write books children and teens pull out from under their pillows at night, to read just one more chapter before they dream their dreams. I hope to write books with the message that kids aren't alone, even when they are so very lonely.

Amy McEwan

What I would like people to say twenty years from now is that the books I write don't fit neatly into any genre. They're almost literary -- but not. There are suspenseful elements -- and yet. They have wide commercial appeal -- still. I don't want to be labeled. Not now, not ever. Best of all, I would know my life had a purpose if somehow one of my books touched someone, reassured them when they needed it most. That would be a dream come true.

Hannah Lipman

I want people to reach for my books confident they will immerse themselves in a story that entertains them in this too-hectic world, that makes them laugh, that introduces them to people they enjoy (even if they wouldn't want to live next door to some), and that maybe slides in an observation or two about the world. I, too, seek constant improvement, so that each book is fresh, each tale a new ride that someone looks forward to taking with me, no matter where the Muse leads.

Lynne Quindlen
I want readers to reach for my books because they know they'll find fresh details and new insight into family life. When the people you love or want to love, confuse you, distance themselves from you or view the world in ways foreign to you, I want my writing to shed light on the intricacies of the human mind and heart. I want to write honest books about love, marriage, raising children and finding hope in the dark moments. To have readers say my fiction is smart, compelling and difficult to put down--that's my dream.