Sage Advice from (of All People) Louis L’Amour
By Allene Symons, Long Beach Branch
After two decades in California Writers Club, I am a longtime advocate of listening to what successful writers have to say – even if his or her genre is one I don’t care a fig about. Case in point: Louis L’Amour.
I have never read a Western novel (he wrote 89 of them, all still in print) but a comment he once made has stayed with me ever since. We met thirty years ago at a reception in New York when I was a senior editor for Publishers Weekly magazine. The occasion was the 1987 launch of his short story collection West From Singapore. That seems a departure for a writer of sagebrush and cattle rustlers, but he did write a few historicals outside his usual genre.
By then I had published one biographical novel: Nostradamus, Vagabond Prophet: A Novel of His Life and Time (Avon Books, now in an edition from Forked Road Press). That night, I asked L’Amour the question we often ask speakers at CWC meetings: How do you manage your research when you write so many books?
“I have a large library,” he said. Large, indeed, 10,000 titles. Then he told me he had many ideas for future books and each one had a dedicated folder. What really struck me was his following comment: “I am not sure which book I’ll write next. I decide after I finish the last one.”
His words gave me permission to plan future books and collect material, not knowing exactly which project on my writer’s bucket list I’d do next. Thank you for permission to waffle, Louis L’Amour! I have already set aside a couple of projects in order to move on to others that struck me as more timely or compelling. But I did not jettison the unfinished manuscripts or their supporting research, and my new book is one I set aside fifteen years ago.
I also took away from my chat with Louis L’Amour the idea that you need research material at the ready. Online research is a great help and so are visits to brick-and-mortar libraries, but owning key research titles saves time you can spend on writing. I ordered used and out-of-print books through online booksellers Alibris and AbeBooks. These eventually filled two small bookshelves and were essential for completing my 2015 book, Aldous Huxley’s Hands: His Quest for Perception and the Origin and Return of Psychedelic Science (Prometheus Books, distributed by Penguin Random House).
And that is the story of my brief but memorable meeting with Louis L’Amour (1908-1988). I think he would be pleased to know that I am passing this advice on to other writers – even those who have not read his books. Oh, and a final note. According to L’Amour’s online biography, one of the writers who influenced him was none other than a name we all know, the celebrated early California Writers Club honorary member, Jack London.
Brought back by request, “Sage Advice”
originally appeared on socalwritersshowcase.com in February 2017