Re: New Thread--Who Inspired You

**C* T* E* <c*@gardenvista.com>**

Since so many of you mentioned John Steinbeck as a beloved and even 
inspiring author, may I recommend reading East of Eden in tandem with 
Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters.  The Journal took the form 
of a letter Steinbeck wrote each morning to his publisher as a sort of 
"prime-the-pump" exercise before he began that day's work on the novel.  
It's fascinating both as a look at Steinbeck the man and his creative 
process as well as a view into 1951.  Here's part of one customer's 
write up on the book taken from the Amazon website:

"Steinbeck wrote the lengthy EAST OF EDEN saga straight through, from 
January to the first of November, in 1951. Every weekday, he sharpened 
his beloved pencils, sat down and warmed up, writing in the form of a 
letter to his friend and publisher, Pascal Covici. The letters he 
entered on the left side of the manuscript book Covici hand given him; 
on the right side, after clearing his mind and setting out the days' 
goals, he'd write his story, averaging about 1,500 words a day. JOURNAL 
OF A NOVEL collects those daily addresses to Covici, to whom EAST OF 
EDEN is dedicated."

Steinbeck also kept track of things while writing East of Eden; here is 
the record: 

. Eleven years of mental gestation
. One year of uninterrupted writing
. 25 dozen pencils
. Approximately three dozen reams of paper
. 350,000 words (before cutting)
. About 75,000 words in his work-in-progress journal
. And a rock-hard callus on the middle finger of the writer's right hand.

   Cheers,
    Catriona

Doreen - what a wonderful story of your inspiration. I also love John 
Steinbeck's writing, I wrote a paper on him in university and learned so 
much about him and life doing the research.

>I was a reader right from the beginning, and still today my idea of a perfect retreat is reading a book in front of the fire or out in the garden. The spark that made me want to write was a book I read when I was fourteen called "Beverley Gray's Career". Now in 1964 the idea of a girl having a career was still a bit of a novelty - at least where I grew up - and Beverley Gray was a newspaper reporter. I held that dream inside until my children were grown and then I figured it was now or never and in 1997 I became a freelance writer, writing first for newspapers and then magazines. Because I started so late I decided I wanted to write about things I loved and that meant gardening - so here I am. I hope to try fiction next.
>
>I'm looking forward to reading other's stories - thanks for the idea Doreen!
>Carol
>
>Carol Matthews
>Truro, Nova Scotia
>Columnist for Canadian Gardening, East Coast Living, European Reporter
>Author of Frommer's Halifax city guide
>Halifax City Expert for www.homeandabroad.com
>Board Member of The Travel Media Association of Canada (www.travelmedia.ca)
>and The Garden Writers Association (www.gwaa.org)
>
>  ----- Original Message ----- 
>  From: Doreen Howard 
>  To: gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org 
>  Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 6:58 PM
>  Subject: [GWL] New Thread--Who Inspired You
>
>
>  We've had a wonderful discussion during the last weeks about business plans and business side of garden communications.  Thank you everyone.  I learned much.
>
>  Now to the creative side.  Who or what inspired you to write, speak or perform?  From where did the spark or epiphany come?
>
>  In my case, it was John Steinbeck.  He wrote so vividly about the Monterrey Bay and Salinas areas of California that it awoke my latent writing ability.  It was easy to mimic him by writing descriptive narratives.  In my case, at 16, I wrote about the towering Ponderosa pines that grew around our family home that backed up to Angeles Crest National Forest.  And, I wrote about my fantasies...growing flowers, cutting them, arranging them.  My Dad was strictly a vegetable, grass and flowering shrub guy, and my mother never gardened.  But, I loved flowers.  So I fanaticized on paper.  Next thing I knew, I was elected editor of the high school newspaper and my writing career was launched.  
>
>  When I was 25, I talked my new husband into taking a trip up the coast to Monterrey Bay so I could see where Steinbeck's characters in Cannery Row and Sweet Tuesday lived.  The commercialization of the area hadn't taken place yet.  We spent the night in Pacific Grove in a hotel where we could hear the lighthouse fog horn and see the ocean lap against the shore, I retraced the steps over the railroad tracks, past the rusted cannery pipes to the chicken coop Mack and the boys called home.  I spent hours that night in the hotel writing my thoughts down in a journal.  My new husband was less than thrilled, but I couldn't stop writing.
>
>  There is only one other writer who has moved me as much as Steinbeck.  James Lee Burke writes of the Louisiana bayous with such passion that you can easily look past the violence in his characters.  His narratives make you cry, because they are so vivid and touching.  He's influencing my latest writing for the web.
>
>  I'm done telling my story.  Tell us yours.
>  Doreen Howard
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>  
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