Janet Fitch
Janet Fitch
Janet Fitch is most famously known as the author of the Oprah's Book Club novel White Oleander, which became a film in 2002. She is a graduate of Reed College, located in Portland, Oregon...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth9 November 1955
CountryUnited States of America
agree people success
When you have success, people think you know what you're doing, and you start to agree with them, you think you can conquer the world. But you go from grandiosity to panic.
bad later months people six trust understand work
When working on your own, you can make a choice and find out six months later that you made a bad choice. But when you work with people you trust, who understand your obsessions, you can take risks.
anger experience happy human people richness suffering time writer
A lot of people think they should be happy all the time. But the writer understands you need both. You need the whole piano: the richness of the whole human experience. Depression, suffering and anger are all part of being human.
angeles came figure fill five home los mother people politics talking time
A figure in Los Angeles politics for five decades, my mother nevertheless had had her fill of talking to people by the time she came home at night.
active core mother parts people politics stop wonder worked
L.A. is such a real, active place. My mother was very into the core of the city. She worked in politics, and you have to know your territory. It's an active matrix; we're all parts of it, but people don't often stop to wonder what's going on.
anytime materials people showing work
Anytime you work with materials that are deep parts of yourself, you feel revulsion at showing things about yourself that you don't want people to know.
kids people trying
The writer is both a sadist and a masochist. We create people we love, and then we torture them. The more we love them, and the more cleverly we torture them along the lines of their greatest vulnerability and fear, the better the story. Sometimes we try to protect them from getting booboos that are too big. Don’t. This is your protagonist, not your kid.
lonely loneliness people
What was the point in such loneliness among people. At least if you were by yourself, you had a good reason to be lonely.
running writing people
Most people use twenty verbs to describe everything from a run in their stocking to the explosion of an atomic bomb. You know the ones: Was, did, had, made, went, looked... One-size-fits-all looks like crap on anyone. Sew yourself a custom made suit. Pick a better verb. Challenge all those verbs to really lift some weight for you.
dark voice people
This involves more than I can discuss here, but do it. Read the writers of great prose dialogue-people like Robert Stone and Joan Didion. Compression, saying as little as possible, making everything carry much more than is actually said. Conflict. Dialogue as part of an ongoing world, not just voices in a dark room. Never say the obvious. Skip the meet and greet.
writing numbers people
Most people write the same sentence over and over again. The same number of words-say, 8-10, or 10-12. The same sentence structure. Try to become stretchy-if you generally write 8 words, throw a 20 word sentence in there, and a few three-word shorties. If you're generally a 20 word writer, make sure you throw in some threes, fivers and sevens, just to keep the reader from going crosseyed.
running writing people
Pick a better verb. Most people use twenty verbs to describe everything from a run in their stocking to the explosion of an A-bomb.
people danger denied
But I knew one more thing. That people w ho denied who they were or where they had been were in the greatest danger.
lying rain people
These people picked you up and played with you and then left you lying in the rain