Word: writes
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Good Enough. The slow strangulation of the theater, says Kerr in a witty, solidly documented new book, How Not to Write a Play (Simon & Schuster; $3.50), cannot be blamed on the economy or war or television or the movies-and least of all, on the low taste of the public. The real trouble lies with the plays themselves: "The audience has not deserted us because we were too good for it, but because we were not good enough...
...Lewis Taylor (no kin to Frank) starts to work at 1 a.m., takes a two-hour nap at 3, works until breakfast at 8:30, then finishes for the day at noon. Between articles Taylor has written seven books, on everything from Winston Churchill to W. C. Fields, also writes occasional fiction and is a regular contributor to The New Yorker.* Many another successful free-lancer carves out a specialized area for himself, e.g., J.D. Ratcliff, science and medicine, Howard Whitman, popular sociology. But even the "specialists" go far afield if they come across an article idea that interests them...
...brutal discipline," says Washington Free-Lancer Sidney Shalett, "and you have to stick to it. If you make the mistake of trying to write fiction in your spare time or fix light bulbs around the house, you're finished." The illusion of not having a boss is also deceptive; instead of one boss they have to satisfy a dozen editors. Says Free-Lancer Maurice Zolotow, who often writes about personalities in the entertainment world: "Once every year most free-lancers are bound to go through a period of despondency. Editors just don't seem to appreciate your genius...
With increasing success, however, the question of security solves itself. When a free-lancer begins to write regularly for several magazines, he can begin to count on their checks just as the magazine can count on the quality of the articles it orders from him. A free-lancer who has stood the gaff long enough to become successful finds it a good life. Says Oregon Democratic Senator Richard Neuberger, who free-lanced for years before he was elected to the Senate: "There's no better existence than a free-lancer's if you can make...
...last visit in October 1953, he planned to go to Hollywood and write an opera with Igor Stravinsky. But first he stopped in New York to make some money by repeating his enormously successful readings of his "play for voices," Under Milk Wood, at Manhattan's Y.M.H.A...