A writer's first lesson

 Between the world wars, A. J. Cronin, a British doctor practicing in London, was diagnosed with an ulcer. The treatment at the time was six months of complete rest on a milk diet.

The place of exile, as he called it, was Fyne Farm, in the Scottish Highlands. He and his wife boarded with the farmer and his family.

After a week, the doctor was going crazy. He was under orders not to do any physical work. Cronin had always thought he might want to write a novel.

So he bought some composition books and started. He worked hard and was delighted to find that the more wrote the more he could write.

Then — as all writers do — he reached the point of despair. On a drizzly day, he dumped the novel in the trash bin and went for a furious walk. He bumped into the farmer in the nearby bog.

Cronin told the farmer the novel was in the bin, getting wet.

And then Cronin read the man’s expression. It was all in the eyes and the face.

Many Scots, farmers as well as university professors, take pride in the country’s contribution to letters. The farmer had been proud when the doctor told him he was writing a book. Cronin had read that pride in the man’s face then. He could read the disgust in the man’s face when he learned the book was in the bin.

The farmer was ditching the bog. The farmer said his father had seen a pasture where the bog was and had begun to dig. The farmer himself had seen that same vision — a fine pasture one day where there was only bog now — and had continued to dig. If you dig enough, a pasture could be made here, he said.

Cronin, shamed and furious, dug the novel out of the bin and dried it in the oven. After a lot more digging in the bog, a book called The Hatter’s Castle emerged.

It was a best seller, was translated into many languages and was turned into a Hollywood film. It was so successful that Cronin left medicine for fiction.

Cronin told this story for would-be writers. The first lesson for writers is perseverance. That’s what Cronin called it, and that’s what it’s usually called. I like to think of it as self-control.

If you read his essay, you can find a second lesson. The moment of despair came when Cronin had some of his early chapters typed. He stopped writing and read them.

What we call writing is more than one process. And two important processes are incompatible. Writing a narrative is a creative process. When you start it, don’t interrupt it by editing, which is a critical process. When you’re writing a draft, don’t pause to fix typos or restructure paragraphs. Don’t stop for anything. Above all, don’t stop to read the early chapters with a critical eye. Editing is a different process. There will be time for that when the first draft is done.

• Source: A.J. Cronin, “The Turning Point of My Career,” The Reader’s Digest, May 1941.