Horton Foote set out to be an actor. He said, a bit sadly, that his plays and screenplays got better reviews than he did.
He won Academy Awards for To Kill a Mockingbird, based on Harper Lee’s novel, and for Tender Mercies. He won a Pulitzer for The Young Man from Atlanta.
Asked what qualities a writers should try to develop, he said:
When I say writing, I don’t mean taking pencil to paper or going to the typewriter; I mean thinking about writing some part of every day. A lot of writing is thinking and meditating and not grabbing at the first idea that comes to you, but letting it take shape and form.
That’s a recurring theme in this collection of online notes. I’d say that’s the first lesson in writing.
Foote was from Wharton, Texas. He died in 2009 at age 92 while working on a cycle of plays.
That might be the second lesson in writing: Don’t give up before Horton.
• Source: Conversations with Texas Writers, edited by Frances Leonard and Ramona Cearley; Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005, p. 92.
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