The Capital Journal from Salem, Oregon • Page 17

Successful Writers Of Today Have Different Slant On Life Than Irvin S. Cobb, One of the Greatest Wits of Out Day, Whose Judge Priest Stories Are Known Immortals Of Yesteryear! as Classic. 1 "-AtsaaM warn- k. mm A a lip NOT many years have passed since talented writers and an occasional literary genius slaved and starved In chill par ret rooms, prisoners of poverty and their own driving urge to put beauty, romance and tragedy on naper Undet the battered keys of worn typewriters, characters from fertile imaginations sprang to life. Those heroes, heroines and villains who peopled the writer's imaginative world gradually took form and covered pager of manuscript.

Sometimes the crea tive process ran smoothly and swiftly. Characters and situations came "to life" In the author's mind, and the story flowed like a turbulent, rushing river carrying all before More often the writer was a dissatisfied, discouraged and brooding person. Pages written in a glow of inspiration were ruthlessly rewritten, corrected, and as often destroyed Writing was "an art" in which the author sought perfection of phrase style and plot and too seldom achieved his high goal. Then came the final test, when editors sent back the manuscript with a cold and formal rejection slip-To many this bit of printed paper meant renewed determination, longer hours of work, and skipping a few meals. But within the last few years a re markable change has occurred.

Today there are millions of more readers, more dally and weekly newspapers. Not Many Yean Ago Writer Were Prtwnen of Poverty, Stattng and Starving in Chill Attic Rooms, Forever Seeking That Elusive Character or Plot That Would Make Their Name Known Throughout the Uterary World. It's Different Now! new magazines, circulating libraries, and book publisher bringing out thousands of books each season. Today writing is a trade, an intensely practical profession like that of a physician, scientist, or engineerand one which is often extremely remunerative. And every writer has a different method of approaching his work.

Some authors become successful almost overnight from unexpected necessity, and find that they possess a talent they did not fully appreciate. But It is rare for a young woman to find herself left almost penniless, with a mother to care for and then sell the first story she writes! This is the unique experience of Miss Mildred Cram, 3 western writer whose recent novel 'Forever and Ever has brought her wide recognition among critics and readers. great stone felines which guard the entrance. "My method of writing." he says, "Is to get under an oak tree with a little table. But it makes no difference whether I write on a train or a boat or in my study; when I begin writing I forget everything else." Young William Saroyan, author of "The Daring Voung Man on the Flying Trapeze," "Inhale and Exhale," "Three Times Three" and several hundred magazine stories, is frank and somewhat satiric about his evident talent and recent leap toward success and literary fame.

"My own opinion is that I am a great writer who sometimes writes poorly," he declares with a smile. "This can be said of almost every great writer who ever lived. "Good or bad, however, 1 have written In three years more stories than most writers write In a lifetime. Vet I am not a hard worker. I have no regular hours.

I write each of my short stories in from one to three hours. I write directly on the typewriter and write a story only once. "I think I know as much about writing as anybody else In the world who can write. It la mighty little. All I know is that If you can write you don't need to know anything about writing." Stewart Edward White, western author of many romantic novels and serials "The Forty-Niners," "The Long Rifle." "Ranchero," and "Back ot Beyond" works steadily once bis theme is well outlined in his mind.

"When I have a subject ready to put down on paper," he explains, "I work at it about three or three and a half hours a day, without necessity of much revising. Generally I do 1000 to 1500 words a day and, I can do a novel In that I dWomethm 'mim apectacular like vS wearing colored head dresses or smelling applies. a TSgsW $'1? or that soft music played but there Just Isn't 7 A anything. I Just work and eat and sleej what a Yi fv lite!" I Writing today has perhaps become less of an 'C1' jr lw art, and more the life work of pro- jf' I ill fesstonal men and women. These 4 I modern authors may.

on occasion, JT jLJpl-aw I "bum the midnight oil" and work llftljif'ti until dawn. But today their labor If I well paid, and many enjoy not onl dJwfcPaX the comforts but the luxuries of llf I handsome sound-proof studies tl "Of I beautiful homes, and secretaries ti 1 I I care for the thousand details con I 'fj? nected with the business of writing I jwir "ml ftlfeJJ 1 "I write In my room," she says, "and In long hand not on a typewriter. I never rewrite, but revise and smooth out phrases and paragraphs as 1 go. I try not to make a great task of writing. Once a day my secretary comes, takes whatever manuscript 1 have written types it and sends It out father was in the publishing business, and it was probably because of his interest in books that I turned to writing when he passed away.

My mother and I went to the New England coast, and rented a picturesque old house on the ocean's edge. It was a rather ancient shack. 1 remember that we tufted paper into the cracks to keep out the wind, and I went to writing." Like other authors whu make their living and a good one by their typewriter oi pen, MIbs Cram does not depend entirely upon book royalties, but turns out numbers of short stories, which have been published in many national magazines. Rupert Hughes, author of a sensational An three or four months of actual writing, though Julian Street Now Spends Most of His Time Traveling, After Publishing Several Successful Books. (thWA iHW scott wood, WrJmJrff lAVtif "Heavenly wUvW Discourse" if often I've been getting it ready for a couple of years." Julian Street, writer and authority on the vintages from the finest vineyards, now travels, gathering new materials and writing for the movies.

His special experience recently led him to design a set ot "wine lovers' glasses," now used in Hollywood and New York. Mr. Street likes to explain what he believes to be the Ideal working methods of a successful author: "He ought not to see the morning paper or his morning mall, but should rise early, and like a lark, proceed to his typewriter. He should stay with it through the morning, making a long morning of it, and perhaps for an hour or two in the afternoon. His life should be so systematized that he can turn out a regular dally stint of at least 1000 words.

4 J4 $fi More Than rff biography of George Washington, is today In Los Angeles writing and directing several pictures similar to his "Patent Leather Kid." "I almost never do any writing in the daytime," he says. "1 cannot give any estimate as to the number of words 1 turn out a day because the amount of writing varies from nothing to all-night sessions. Sometimes the pen goes very rapidly, and sometimes very slowly. When it goes rapidly, I know that 1 shall have to rewrite what it pours out so often that the result often means nothing. Yet sometimes I find that the first draft Is no worse than the tenth." Although Irvin S.

Cobb says that he writes very little at present, he still Is familiar with his typewriter "I average about a thousand words a day, and 1 usually do my writing In the forenoon." This author is both writing and acting for the movies, and making more money in a year than many earlier writers earned in a lifetime. Miss Margaret Mitchell's record -breaking novel, "Gone With the Wind," was written from 1926 to 1929 She wrote it from early morning until midnight without pause. "It just had to be written," she insists. And critics say that it is, this driving quality which characterizes the book and has made it so enormously popular. It was composed slowly and steadily, and little actual rewriting was necessary.

One of the West's well-known authors Is Erskine Scott Wood, whose best seller, "Heavenly Discourse." still brings him royalties. This book, an imaginative excursion among many famous people who have died In the past few thousand years, is still selling, Mr. Wood says, "as fast as It has already run through over 50 editions. After the war the author married Sara Bard Field, western poetess and writer, and they built a home In Los Gatos, California, known as "The Cats," because of two Two or three thousand words Is better. He should then have the best part of the afternoon free for exercise, of which he should take a good deal to compensate for the sedentary morning.

"I always Hnd it easier to write a story if, when I begin to write, I have the end of it In my mind with great exactitude. I may even have It word for word, or almost word for word. That gives one on absolute sense of direction; a definite point toward which one Is continually driving. John Steinbeck, who wrote "Ot Mice and Men" a small book balled by several critics as the finest literary effort of the last decade Bays of himself "I haven't any method of work. I Just work.

As uninteresting as having a job in an office. No trantrums, no midnight excursions 'scarcely even a scream or a You'd get just as interesting information from a bank clerk. I can't get upset about the rapture of putting words down. I wish for my own sake Stewart Edward White, Mildred Cram and William Sayroyan Are All Writers of the West ho Have Produced Many Sensational Successes Margaret Mitchell (left) Whose Record-Brcaking Novel "Gone With The Wind" Achieved Success Unknown to Most Writers on Her First Try. Rupert Hughes (above) Now Spends Most of His Time Writing for the Movies and Radio.

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