Jenny Mendes

Zadie Smith: 10 Good Writing Habits Zadie Smith rocked the literary world in her late twenties with her novel  White Teeth , a look into various lives in contemporary multicultural London. She followed this up with the novels  The Autograph Man  and  On Beauty , and she is also a leading light in literary criticism. She is considered one of the freshest and most ambitious voices of her generation. 10 Good Writing Habits When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else. When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would. Don't romanticise your “vocation." You can either write good sentences or you can't. There is no “writer's lifestyle." All that matters is what you leave on the page. Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can't do aren't worth doing. Don't mask self-doubt with contempt. Leave a de...