The Writing Trade by John Jerome

By Kate Phillips   

 

            I read books about writing for motivation and inspiration. I especially appreciate the ones that also give insights into the life of a writer.
 

The Writing Trade: A Year in the Life by John Jerome is one of those books. It's also perfect to read now as his story begins on January 2. This is not a daily journal but reflections by month on his work.
 

At the start of a new year, his writing projects are at different stages. The Writing Trade is just beginning. He also needs to write 12 essays for a magazine column; correct book proofs arriving in 10 days, work on another book that is being reissued, and write two other articles for midsummer deadlines, plus make pitches for more assignments to pay the bills.
 

While Jerome wrote the book in 1989, he considers this a generic year in the life of a freelance writer. At that point, the author had been in the writing trade for 30 years, 20 as a freelance writer. He survived that long by following these rules: "Don't do anything on spec, don't do anything that you can't finish on up-front money, don't depend on any way on actual sales, or expect any outcome other than the receipt of the final check for the agreed upon price."
 

Through the decades, he wrote eight books with varying success and a couple of hundred magazine articles. Jerome states, "I am a competent, but essentially invisible writer, proof that one can earn a living from writing for years without ever breaking into the public consciousness…all I ever wanted was to write, quietly, for a living."

 

 

Jerome shares: how he gets ideas, his writing schedule, his thoughts on book proposals, publication and reviews, and much more. I enjoyed learning about these things, but mostly I loved his writing on the writing process.

Some of my favorite examples underlined in my reread copy:

 

Page 3: ...ready to get back into the long, steady flow of real work, chasing ideas down the page.

 

Page 38: Writing is a process of going over and over the material endlessly, getting what you're trying to say driven into a corner.

 

Page 226: What's needed to produce a solid body of work is a solid body of time.

 

Since this is a book about the writing life, quotes from other writers appear at the beginning of each month's reflections as well as within the text.
 

Jerome also details his walks with his dogs, nature scenes, and talks with his wife as they all play a part in his writing. As he notes on page 62, "In the end, all writing is about turning experiences into words…there's a great deal more experience in our lives than we ever succeed in knowing."
 

The exhilaration of writing is in chasing these experiences and ideas down the page.

 

 

What writing books inspire you?