Welcome, bookish friends! If you’ve seen some of my other posts, you may have run across a Deep Dive or two, that look into the inner workings of some aspect of the bookish world. I’ve had a lot of fun with those posts, and began thinking, why not try this approach with authors as well? Like, what or who inspires an author? And what’s their process? Are they a coffee or tea person? You know, the important questions.
And so that’s what today will be. The beginning of a new series of sporadic posts called Author Inspo, that dig a bit into the details of an author’s creative life. And what better way to start than with Zadie Smith?
Being a member of the bookish community likely means being aware of Zadie Smith’s catalog of works. She is one of the literary icons of our generation, churning out masterpiece after masterpiece that each quickly becomes part of the literary zeitgeist.
My first exposure to Smith was when I read her novel NW as part of my college thesis. Full disclosure, it wasn’t my favorite book that I read for my thesis, but I was certainly able to acknowledge the mastery of the book. And then I read Swing Time. And let me tell you - Swing Time was one of my favorite books I read the year I read it, and has remained one of my favorite books in the years since.
And as an aspiring author myself, I am always curious about what inspires and energizes the authors I admire. So here’s what I’ve found about Ms. Smith.
The first source of inspiration for Smith’s work seems to be her family. She’s described motherhood as “superuseful” to her writing, and cites her parents as being both a source of her love of reading, and her father, in particular her navigating the grief following his death, as the inspiration behind a number of her essays. Her novel, On Beauty, also seems to be inspired by E. M. Foster’s Howard’s End. However, overall, “Smith does not focus on literary idols. Everything inspires her, she said, and usually paintings and music are actually the most impactful.”
Often complementing and supplementing her sources of inspiration, Smith has also shared her creative process. For instance, in 2010, she shared a number of tips for writers, including “[w]ork on a computer that is disconnected from the internet,” and “[w]hen an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.”
Aside from her tips for writers, she’s also shared how her own writing develops. “Smith says she spends 80 percent of her efforts on the first 50 or 60 pages of a book — and the rest comes ‘pretty quickly.’ She says she does that to get the tone — the perspective — the way she wants it.” She has also shared a preference for strong plot, and an “uncomplicated” approach to the beginning of a project - “she begins her novels by writing a sentence or two, usually aiming for a particular tone.”
So there you have it friends. A super brief synopsis of Zadie Smith’s inspirations and her creative processes. My plan for today is to study that list of tips she has for writers, in the hopes that I can someday write something that is even half as good as Swing Time.
Have you read any of Zadie Smith’s novels? Share your favorites below!
Sources (also directly linked to quotes or information):
Chotiner, Isaac. “Zadie Smith on Male Critics, Appropriation, and What Interests Her Novelistically About Trump.” Slate, slate.com/culture/2016/11/a-conversation-with-zadie-smith-about-cultural-appropriation-male-critics-and-how-trump-interests-her-novelistically.html.
“Zadie Smith: Quiet Spirit.” ESME, 30 Oct. 2018, https://esme.com/single-moms/sons-daughters/zadie-smith-quiet-spirit.
Ilsley-Greene, Lillian. “Zadie Smith Talks ‘Swing Time,’ Creative Process During Book Club Breakfast – the Daily Free Press.” The Daily Free Press, 28 Mar. 2018, dailyfreepress.com/2018/03/28/zadie-smith-talks-swing-time-creative-process-during-book-club-breakfast.
“In Essays, Author Zadie Smith Reveals Her Process.” NPR, 11 Nov. 2009, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120320510.
“Ten Rules for Writing Fiction (Part Two).” The Guardian, 22 Feb. 2018, www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/20/10-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-two.
Leistman, Victoria. “Zadie Smith Discusses Work, Writing Process.” The Tufts Daily, 28 Mar. 2012, tuftsdaily.com/news/2012/03/28/zadie-smith-discusses-work-writing-process.
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