Molly:
I have recently review your book "How to Grow a Nove"l. Please tell us a bit about how you came to present this work? I found it full of valuable information for new and not so new writers, by the by.

Sol Stein:
I have been teaching writers one-on-one for a very long time. Some have been very successful, James Baldwin, Jack Higgins, David Frost, Elia Kazan among them. In the early 90s I started teaching groups of writers, but I started to clone myself in computer programs for writers (e.g. WritePro, FictionMaster, FirstAid for Writers) and then in a book called "Stein on Writing," the success of which all over the world took me by surprise. My publishers in the US, Britain, and Europe asked me for more, so I wrote "How to Grow a Novel" with actual examples from what I taught writers who made it all the way to the top.

Molly:
Impressive credentials! Sol, what inspires you to write?

Sol Stein:
You can't keep me from writing. From the time I had my first poem published (a very long time ago), writing as been my number one joy in life and still is.

Molly:
Chuckle. Writers do tend to be driven do we not? Please tell us how long have you been writing?

Sol Stein:
My first book was published in 1941. I wrote it when I was 13. The publisher asked me to come down to his visit. I did. He looked at the kid and said, "Why didn't your father come himself?"

Molly:
That is a wonderful tale! And you have never stopped writing I suspect. Please fill us in on what does your daily life looks like.

Sol Stein:
I write every morning first thing. Some writers are nightingales, and write half the night. I'm a lark. Afternoons and evenings are devoted to correspondence, friends, children, love, theater.

Molly:
What did you do first Sol? Did you first write your book or did you seek out an agent or a publisher?

Sol Stein:
The situation in publishing was very different when I first came on the scene, so I will answer for today's publishing environment. My advice is make your book as good as you can before soliciting an agent, and always get yourself a good agent before trying to get the book published yourself. Then, just in case you don't succeed in the commercial arena, you can self-publish your best work, not a work that still needs overhauling.

Molly:
Sounds like very good suggestions. Please tell us something about yourself, about your life.

Sol Stein:
I'm a perfectionist. Saul Bellow, who won a Nobel Prize for his writing, read my last published novel in manuscript in draft #11. He liked it. Nevertheless, I wrote two more drafts before submitting it. Today, many beginners try to publish before their stories are ready. The craft of writing is akin to brain surgery; you are working to affect the brains of thousands of people you've never met. Would you want to have your brain operated on by a beginner surgeon? Or would you have wanted him to study for years? Craft consists of what hundreds of other writers have learned over the centuries. Why reinvent the wheel? There are computer programs that have helped writers I've worked with http:
writepro.com, books that convey the craft techniques of this profession, writers conferences, lots of places to learn the brain-surgery of writing fiction and nonfiction.

Molly:
Thank you for all your excellent advice and suggestions for beginning writers. Lets turn now to a couple of specifics about character development while writing. Do you find that your characters 'come alive' as you are writing? Do they take over and direct the tale as you go along?

Sol Stein:
I invent my characters and think about them when I am not writing, but eventually they seem to take on a life of their own. I wrote four novels about a lawyer named Thomassy, a fictional character, and my publisher actually got letters from women who wanted to marry him.

Molly:
so many of us whether we write or only read what has been written have been inspired by a particular authors or authors. Please tell us who is your fav author(s), how did this(those) writer(s) inspire you and your writing?

Sol Stein:
I've learned from a lot of writers, but Graham Greene influenced me a great deal. So did Mark Twain with his candor and feistiness.

Molly:
Ah, a kindred spirit. I have long enjoyed Twain. What advice do you have for aspiring writers Sol?

Sol Stein:
Work at learning craft. Don't write from the top of your head, which is only good for growing hair. If you wanted to play the piano, you'd take lessons and study piano-playing and practice, practice, practice? Do you believe writing is different?

Molly:
As before Sol, what good suggestions you have for aspiring writers. Most writers published or not say they realize rewards from their writing. What rewards do you enjoy from being a writer?

Sol Stein:
Joy in the writing now that I know what I'm doing. The money is secondary. With the hundreds of writers I've worked with, a very few put money first and succeeded. Those who put the writing experience first wrote the books I loved, too.

Molly:
Indeed. Can you tell us what are you writing at the moment?

Sol Stein:
I'm writing my tenth novel, also a book about courtesy (not etiquette!) as the lubricant of all social behavior. I've just written an essay about my lifelong friendship with James Baldwin, which will probably be published together with a play that we collaborated on a long time ago. Both A&E Biography and C-Span have recently filmed me talking about this writer/editor relationship that resulted in Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son," which was picked by the Modern Library Board as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of the century. I love writing dialogue (I was a playwright before I was a novelist) and am tempted to go back to a Broadway that has changed a lot since I had plays performed there.

Molly:
Marvelous! Look forward to doing the review. Thank you so much for sharing your time and thoughts with us Sol.