Reference Material:
I have been writing non-fiction for years actually, but secretly wanting to be a novelist.
When I first started writing at the age of 30, it was with the intention of writing fiction, but I took a little detour for 10 or 12 years, and write non-fiction which I absolutely have no regret about at all. I think it’s exactly the right thing for me to do. But there’s this dream tucked away inside of me to do this. Now I was remembering reading something that wrote, who is a great novelist from Mississippi who had a big influence on me actually. She said, “no art ever came out of not risking your neck.” And I think she’s absolutely right about that. It felt that way to me at the time; it actually feels that way every time I sit down to write something. Finally, in the early 90s, I took my deep breath and started writing fiction. It felt risky to me at the time to do that. And one of the very first things that I wrote was, what I thought was going to be the first chapter of a novel, called “The Secret Life of Bees.” I wrote it in 1992, and it is actually essentially the first chapter of the novel as it is now.
Audio:
Sample Answer:
The speaker had been writing nonfiction for years, but secretly dreamed of being a novelist. Although she had the intention of writing fiction, she took a long detour without regret. She quoted a saying by Eudora Welty: “No art ever came out of not risking your neck.” Since it considerably influenced her, she completed the first chapter of the novel named “The Secret Life of Bees” in 1992. (68 words)
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