A targeted and insightful guide to the stages of creating a full-length work without falling into common traps, while wisely navigating the writing life, from an award-winning author and longtime teacher. Writing well does not result from following rules and instructions, but from a blend of spontaneity, discipline, and particular attitudes toward the work—neither despairing nor defensive, but clear-eyed, courageous, and discerning. Writers must learn to be tolerant of the early stages and dreamlike and irrational states of mind, to move from jottings and ideas to a messy first draft, and onward from there into the work of revision. Understanding these stages is key. THE KITE AND THE STRING stresses the courage to let playfulness and spontaneity breathe life into the work—letting the kite move with the winds of feeling—while still holding on to the string that will keep it from flying away. Alice Mattison attends also to the difficulties of protecting writing time, preserving solitude, f...

About the Author

Alice Mattison is a widely acclaimed author and longtime writing teacher. She has published six novels—including The Book Borrower, Nothing Is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn, and, most recently, When We Argued All Night, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice—as well as four collections of short stories and a collection of poems. Twelve of her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, and other ...