f your life which seem to you
peculiarly interesting are exactly those that are commonly--and even
cheaply--written about, while those which you have passed over as not worth
attention may be aspects of life that other people too have passed over;
they may therefore be fresh and well worth writing about. For instance,
within the last twenty-five years we have had two writers, Joseph Conrad
and John Masefield, writing of the sea as it has never been written of
before. Both have been sailors; and both have utilized their experience as
viewed through the medium of their temperaments in a way undreamed of
before. Again, within the last ten years we have had Algernon Blackwood,
using his imagination to apply psychology to the study of the supernatural,
and so developing a field peculiar to himself. Still again, H. G. Wells,
who began his career as a clerk and continued as a teacher of science, has
found in both these phases of his experience a mine of literary wealth; and
Arnold Bennett, born and educated in the dreariest, most unpicturesque,
apparently least inspiring, part of England, has seen in the very prosiness
of the Five Towns untouched material, and has given this an enduring place
in literature. In your imagination there may lie the basis of fantasies as
yet unexpressed; or in your experience, aspects of life that have not as
yet been adequately treated. As you read you will find that until recently
the one phase of life most exploited in literature was the romantic love of
youth; this was the basis of nearly all novels and of most short stories;
its presence was demanded for either primary or secondary interest in the
drama; and it was the chief source of inspiration for the lyric. But within
the last thirty years all sorts of other subjects have been opened up.
To-day the writer's difficulty is, not that he is restricted by literary
convention in his choice of material, but that he is so absolutely
unrestricted that he may be in doubt where to make his choice. He is, to be
sure, conditioned in two ways: To do the best work, he must keep within the
bounds of his own temperament and experience; and he should as far as
possible avoid phases of life already written about, unless he can present
them under some new aspect.

With these conditions in mind, you are ready to ask yourself: What have I
to write about? Let us put the question more concretely: Have you lived,
for instance, in a little mining town in the West? Su