A longer version of this article is available at Medium.
Louisa May Alcott’s most famous novel does not just reveal her love for her family; Little Women also makes plain how her experiences and her passion turned her into the kind of writer who achieved fortune in her lifetime, and fame that has lasted more than a century beyond her death.
Little Women tells the story of Jo March’s progression from writing dramatic plays performed in the attic by her sisters, to writing bestselling morality tales, intrigues, and eventually a novel that spawned a bestselling series in its time and became a literary classic.
Toil at what allows you to write Little Women. Photo by amirali mirhashemian on Unsplash
In fact, the book follows Jo so closely that one could treat the book as a writer’s manual of sorts, and glean valuable writing lessons as applicable today as they were in her time.
Alcott did, in fact, once pass along encouragement and advice in a letter to a young aspiring author. It’s an honest and engaging read.
Sadly, unlike many articles on Medium, Alcott offers her audience no shortcut to literary fame and fortune. She writes, “[t]here is no easy road to successful authorship; it has to be earned by long & patient labor, many disappointments, uncertainties & trials.”
You could, of course, dedicate yourself to learning all about Louisa May Alcott.
However, a richer repository of Louisa May Alcott’s writing advice exists in her journal and her other letters — to her family, mostly — as contained in Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals. Published in 1889, and edited by Edna Cheney, this book reveals a heart that beat to write.
From this book, selected journal entries and passages from letters capture Alcott’s spirit and style, and reveal the secrets of her success.
These are:
- Live life, love life
- Learn from (and write about) your own experiences
- Toil at what allows you to commit to writing
- “Take fate by the throat”
- Set clear, high goals
- Celebrate your successes, however modest
And this is what I aspire to do.