THE WRITING LIFE
The Now Nearly Forgotten Jack London
“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
In my first writers conference, the week-long Decision School of Writing, the instructor who made the greatest impression on me was Dennis Hensley. Hensley was teaching a class on Advanced Article Writing, though it actually contained plenty more than that.
He shared many actionable ideas, one of them being a recommendation to read Jack London’s Martin Eden, which he suggested would be highly instructive for wannabe freelance writers. It became my re-introduction to the writings of Jack London.
It seems like we don’t hear much about Jack London these days. One of my favorite short stories of all time — “A Piece of Steak” — was penned by London. It’s my understanding that he was the highest paid short story writer in America for a spell. There were no television sets or radios back then. Reading had very little competition as far as diversions go. People who could write a compelling story were rewarded accordingly.
His output was prodigious. Hemingway famously set out to write 500 good words a day. London’s aim was 1000 words a day. He published 40 novels and collections of stories before his premature death.
