Take Your Time

It’s okay to live your life, find your voice, and figure out what you want to say

Wake Up and Write is a regular advice column from Moms Don’t Have Time to Write. Today, we have Steven Rowley — bestselling author of Lily and the Octopus, The Editor, and now The Guncle — who shared writing advice on the podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books, hosted by Zibby Owens.

“Keep at it.”

“This certainly was not my first career. I’ve been writing for years and years and years. I didn’t publish my first novel until my forties. It takes time. I was always jealous of twenty-five-year-olds who come out of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and write something brilliant. That was not my path. It is okay to live life and find your voice.

I think that is the most important thing to discover is not only your writing style, which is very important, but what it is that you have to say about the world. It’s okay if that takes you time. Where the Crawdads Sing is Delia Owens’ first novel, and she was seventy. That’s been the biggest publishing story of the past ten years.

If you see someone with their debut novel getting a lot of attention, chances are they have other books. I have three manuscripts on a shelf that were not published before I broke through with my first novel, Lily and the Octopus. It takes time. It’s connecting the right paths.

You have to write. You also can’t give up.”

Listen to the episode:

https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/steven-rowley-the-guncle

Buy the book:

https://bookshop.org/books/the-guncle-9781432887582/9780525542285