Book Reviews-Recommendations, Handling Difficulties, Non-Fiction Reviews/Recommendations

Meet Author David Sloan

August 3, 2021August 4, 2021

I am honored to introduce you to my friend, David Sloan.

I met David through the Southern Christian Writers Conference that he and his precious wife, Joanne, founded. He is a prolific writer, educator, and encourager of writers. (Check back tomorrow and read his full bio.)

During breaks at the SCWC, I often see one or two writers talking to David and “picking his brain.” He is always willing to listen, answer questions, and teach writers.

SJC: It’s hard to jump in and start writing. What words of wisdom do you have to encourage someone just beginning to write?

DS: You’re right. I’ve known only a handful of people who succeeded with their first effort at getting published. By “succeeded” I mean getting a book or an article published where they truly wanted. But, based on what they told me, I found that they were systematic in how they went about their work. For example, I asked one young writer who got the first article she wrote published in Seventeen magazine how she was able to publish in such a major national magazine on her initial effort. She answered, “I read [title], an excellent book on writing feature articles, and did what it said.”

So my advice to anyone wanting to break into publishing is to understand the process. Some successful writers may seem to be creative geniuses, and some might not even be able to explain how they write — but if you studied what they do, you would probably find that nearly all of them understand the principles (if only intuitively).

Other than that — understanding the principles — there’s no magic formula for succeeding at writing. In explaining the writing process, Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951), the American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright, said, “Writing is just work — there’s no secret.” I think most successful writers would agree with him.

SJC: Is writing your full-time career? Or would you like it to be?

DS: No, writing has never been my full-time career. However, because I was a professor starting at a young age and because most universities expect professors to publish, writing was something I did as a normal part of my entire career.

Most of my writing was scholarly rather than popular. But because my field was journalism, I wrote or edited several books and magazine articles about the writing craft. Most of them dealt with news writing and editorials.

As an undergraduate, I majored in journalism and minored in English. Writing is central to both of those fields. And before I began teaching, I worked on four newspapers, mainly as an editor. In my newspaper work I was continually dealing with writing.

I can’t say that I ever wanted to write as a full-time job. Writing is demanding, and I find it difficult to stay at it for more than an hour or two at a time. By then, my brain grows numb and demands that I take a break. I couldn’t write full-time.

SJC: What were the key challenges you faced when doing Writing: 2,100 Quotations?

DS: The book presented no major challenges. It’s a collection, and I find that gathering material is not as demanding as writing. So doing the work wasn’t particularly hard. Mainly the book required that I work on it industriously, usually several hours a day. I just had to be methodical — simply because I was dealing with a huge universe of material.

Here’s the procedure I used:

Since I’ve always been interested in writing, the idea for the book came naturally. And since my wife, Joanne, is also interested in writing, we talk frequently about the subject and writers’ ideas about writing. One day I just decided that a collection of writers’ quotations about writing would be an interesting and valuable book to have.

One of the main issues was being thorough. Here is where the only real challenge confronted me. It was the need to be exhaustive in locating quotations. I gathered them from such sources as the Internet and books of quotations in my home library. I also contacted a variety of writers whom I know, soliciting quotations. I wound up with more than 4,000.

Next, I deleted duplicate quotations. Since I had gathered quotations from a variety of sources, it was inevitable that some would be repeated.

I wanted the book to be not only informative but interesting as well. Here’s an example from Samuel Johnson: “Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage that you think is particularly fine, strike it out.” I deleted quotations that didn’t fill the bill. That left me with about 2,100.

Then I organized all of the quotations into categories. The book has seven large categories (for example, the writing craft) subdivided into 44 smaller ones (for example, “Structure, Plot, Form, Story Development”), all arranged in a logical order.

An added feature is very brief biographical information about each of the 750 or so writers who are quoted. Gathering that material added time to doing the book.

Then I compiled an index, listing every page on which every writer has a quotation.

SJC: What other writing projects are you working on right now?

DS: I don’t like to talk much about anything I’m writing. To do so seems presumptuous, and it dilutes my interest in working on a project. So I will say only very briefly that my main project is a history of how the New Testament was written. I’ve spent about five years on it, doing the initial research and writing the first four chapters. At the slow rate I’m going, I probably will spend about five more years.

I do continue to do revised editions of three college textbooks, and I suppose I will until I can no longer think or schools no longer use them

SJC: What book is currently on your bedside table?

DS: I have three: (1) The Essential Martin Luther, a collection of five of his most important essays; (2) Favorite Classic Poems, A Collection from 500 Years, an anthology that my wife edited; and (3) Unspoken Sermons, by George MacDonald. Right now I’m spending more time with this last one than with the other two. Fifteen years ago, my son and I started something we call “The Theology Club.” It meets every three months, and the group discusses a classic book. We’re reading MacDonald for our next meeting.

As I select books to read, I keep in mind the counsel of P.J. O’Rourke, the political essayist. He advises, “Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.”

Read my review of Writing: 2,100 Quotations for Readers, Writers, and Lovers of Writing.