Lily King and Judy Blume in Conversation

Simple advice from the best.

Hi friends.

The residency is solidly over and now I’m back in New Orleans. While I was there I filled up one extremely small notebook and I read a bunch of books and I met nice people and I felt looked after to and tended to and respected and I walked in the sunshine every day and also I drank and ate with abandon. And I was lucky enough to participate in a reading with Tricia on a roof of a beautiful building, and our event was easy-going and sweet and fun. The morning before I left I walked around the island for a few hours early in the morning, and I thanked the water and the sun and the air for taking care of me for the month.

But what’s really sticking with me right now is a reading I attended where I saw Lily King in conversation with our queen Judy Blume. Because their conversation was very simple and chatty and funny, but also thoughtful and helpful. Just two seasoned pros sharing what they know. I loved hearing Judy say, “The best part of the writing is the surprises.” That felt so right to me. You really never know what’s going to pop up in your writing. You just have to stay open to ideas.

And at the end of the conversation someone in the audience raised their hand and said, “What advice would you give to a writer?”

Lily King went first:

“I always say the same thing: You just have to start writing,” she said. “The first things you write probably won’t be good…The trick is not to be critical of your first drafts.”