Page:The Craftsmanship of Writing.djvu/22

THE INBORN TALENT in a dramatic school, if one does not want to start with a handicap. In contrast writing seems so simple; pen and ink, a pad of paper, a table in a quiet corner—these to the uninitiated seem to be the net amount of required capital. Frank Norris, in a burst of rather curious optimism, once wrote, "The would-be novel writer may determine between breakfast and dinner to essay the plunge, buy (for a few cents) ink and paper between dinner and supper, and have the novel under way before bedtime. How much of an outlay does his first marketable novel represent? Practically nothing." Mr. Norris seems for the moment to have forgotten that his own first "marketable novel," McTeague (although published subsequently to Moran of the Lady Letty), represented careful labour scattered over a period of four years, and that a portion of it at least necessitated quite literally a further delay [ 8 ]