If you are any kind of writer, Elizabeth McCracken has 280 points to make in her latest book. The esteemed novelist offers a wide array of suggestions, recommendations and hints on the ins and outs of the writing mind. Her engagement with the topic covers not only her long, celebrated career as a writer but also her years of teaching --- first at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the most influential writing program in the country, and recently at the University of Texas at Austin.

With salient revelations about everything from third-person narration to word selection to resources and inspirations, A LONG GAME gives everyone access to the hard-earned, genius-level knowledge that any artist could offer his or her community.

To quote a few:

"It is refreshing and stimulating to read the words of a seasoned writer, a woman no less, who has made an impact on the literary landscape and believes in sharing that experience with those who are trying to wrest their way into this world."

“Your voice is merely the idiosyncratic linguistic habits, good and bad, that give you pleasure. Your own little indulgences, the way you form your thoughts, whether you like to repeat words or let your sentences go long or are careless, inconsistent with your commas. Voice comes from writing with an open ear and an open mind. It rises up from the page. It doesn’t descend from the ether.”

I find this to be such a delightful and stress-reducing way of thinking about how people put words and ideas together. Never has this topic been discussed in such clear and compassionate words.

“The body is a fact: let characters react to facts. Fiction could do with a little more farting: every [one] is a surprise, a failure, a joke, an event. I say that knowing that there are readers and writers who can’t abide by what they might call bathroom humor. I once received a rejection note from The Paris Review that described my ‘scatology’ as ‘uninteresting.’ Not all of my advice is helpful.”

Giving such advice and then pointing out that it might not be helpful is a charming way of saying that every writer is a human being with their own wants and humor and ways of acting. As McCracken gives permission for writers to take bodily functions seriously and comically as part of their work (I bet The Paris Review never gave John Updike or Henry Miller a hard time about their scatology), she recognizes that it may not bring success, so use with caution.

Like Strunk and White, McCracken offers up advice about punctuation and proper sentence structure, only to shred that same idea in another numbered note. She makes me think of a professor who once told me that you can’t write ULYSSES until you can produce a bad haiku. McCracken wants everyone to realize that all things come with time and experience. There is nothing like a born writer, per se, who writes perfect prose, dialogue or poetry from the get-go. As much as she understands the need to grasp the function of grammar and structure, she has learned by trade that sometimes the best thing one can do is to go well outside those boundaries to invent something new. But knowing what those boundaries are is the ticket to being able to tear them all down. A very wise statement, indeed.

It is refreshing and stimulating to read the words of a seasoned writer, a woman no less, who has made an impact on the literary landscape and believes in sharing that experience with those who are trying to wrest their way into this world. At a crazy time like this, it is wonderful to find a guide like A LONG GAME. There is nothing more important than documenting one’s time and the feelings of those who don’t have the chance to speak for themselves.

Elizabeth McCracken gives all who wish to try a lot of sage leadership in the most human of pursuits --- telling stories in order to understand how the world works. It’s imperative that the arts stay in the picture, now and forever.