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Craft & work

How does a new piece of work usually begin for you?

60 answers answered between 1932 and 2026 one of 3 in The Art of Fiction

Originally asked

The Paris Review, to novelists and poets, The Art of Fiction

A recurrent craft question in The Paris Review's Art of Fiction interviews; wording varies between character, theme, first sentence, image, and idea.

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On the record

Public figures who have answered a question like this elsewhere. Quoted from the source shown, not written for FLAPSS.

Read by field Everyone Science and medicine 4 Arts and letters 51 Politics and public life 2 Business and finance 1 Technology 2
Read by age Any age Before thirty 1 In their thirties 6 In their forties 10 In their fifties 7 In their sixties 7 Seventy and beyond 9
Winston Churchill Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1940–1945 and 1951–1955; Member of Parliament 1900–1964
Having bought the colours, an easel, and a canvas, the next step was to begin. But what a step to take! The palette gleamed with beads of colour; fair and white rose the canvas; the empty brush hung poised, heavy with destiny, irresolute in the air. My hand seemed arrested by a silent veto.
Recorded Essay first published in the Strand Magazine in 1921–22 and collected in Amid These Storms, 1932, Winston S. Churchill, Painting as a Pastime, Project Gutenberg Canada, 1932 source ↗

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