Sarah Bruni Recommends...

“I read aloud. This can make writing anywhere besides at home nearly impossible. I envy those who write in cafés, but each time I try it myself, I only eavesdrop. Reading aloud, I become more emotionally invested in the moment I’m trying to create;

I feel present in the dialogue, so I’m more likely to hear the response to something a character has said, rather than force it. I read aloud slowly and deliberately. If I have a particularly productive morning writing, I’ll often have a slightly sore throat in the afternoon from all that talking to myself. When hearing fragments from something I’m working on doesn’t help guide me, I read aloud the work of writers I admire—Raymond Carver, Lorrie Moore, Italo Calvino, George Saunders, Roberto Bolaño, Joan Didion—writers whose language offers a kind of borrowed rhythm to embrace and articulate for a while. And when that doesn’t work, I go for a walk, a run, a bike ride—some outside activity, preferably in the sun and surrounded by the movement of other people, and I try again the next day.”
—Sarah Bruni, author of The Night Gwen Stacy Died (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013)