Writing Advice from the Early 20th Century

My day off also allowed me the time to finish a book. (It's amazing what you can get done with a day off of work! haha) I had been reading Moment and Other Essays by Virginia Woolf. I've read a bit of her fiction, and thought I'd try some non-fiction. This particular collection featured short biographies, literary criticism, and a lot of pieces on writing in general, which I found to be rather insightful. She said a lot of things that I plan to keep in mind as I write my own fiction, and I especially liked her opinions that new and unknown writers are "dangerous"! (At least the successful ones are...might I be one of those one day? We'll see...) A lot of the opinions she put into these essays are rather straightforward and blunt (some even made me laugh out loud), which surprised me after reading something like Mrs. Dalloway, which I loved, but has those long, involved sentences and to which you really have to pay attention in order not to get lost in her thoughts and forget what's going on. Whether you have read a lot of Woolf's work or not, give this collection of essays a shot. The ones about writing are the best.