When writing ‘Some Luck’, Jane Smiley tried something new… she set herself a daily word target. “Then as I got further along in the book I would increase the number of words I had to write each day… I wanted the energy to build and I thought maybe the faster I went, the faster the energy would build as [volumes two and three of the trilogy] progressed.”
In an interview with ‘The Bookseller’ magazine [September 5, 2014]

I’ve never set a wordcount target like this, but Smiley’s comments about energy are interesting. It is certainly true that when I’m ‘on a roll’ I just write, I forget about time or wordcount, and I amaze myself at how much I have written. I guess that’s the energy she’s talking about here, the energy of the writer does translate to the page. I did read some writing advice: to finish mid-sentence and pick it up again in the same place the following day. I don’t think that would work for me.

Some Luck is the first of a trilogy which follows the story of the same family over 100 years. In 1920, Walter Langdon returns from the battlefields of the Great War, and settles down to farm live in Iowa with his wife Rosanna. This first book tells the Langdon story from 1920-1950. Some Luck is followed by Early Warning and Golden Age. It is some years since I read A Thousand Acres, Smiley’s Pulitzer-winning re-telling of King Lear, set in the American mid-West. Another for my re-read pile.

Click here for Jane Smiley’s website.
Read my reviews here:-
A Thousand Acres
Some Luck

 

If you agree with Jane Smiley, perhaps you will agree with:-
Chris Pavone – put ordinary people into extraordinary situations
Joanne Harris – I’ve always read, and I’ve always written
Hanif Kureishi – Writing is an art, but it is also a business

‘Some Luck’ by Jane Smiley [UK: Mantle]

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
How Jane Smiley sets herself a wordcount target http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1ev via @SandraDanby #amwriting