Daily Archives: February 17, 2008

Home > Daily Archives: February 17, 2008

Phyllis Whitney………..

February 17, 2008 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives

I just heard that Phyllis Whitney died in early February at 104.

I can still remember finding one of her books, The Quicksilver Pool, in the library and getting so lost in the pages, I didn’t hear my mom telling me it was time to go home.

Now THAT’S a writer. Phyllis was still writing and publishing books until she was 94–most of us can only hope for a career like that! She said she wouldn’t stop writing until she got ‘old’. You gotta love that, too!

Phyllis Whitney’s books made me sigh, made me cringe and made me believe completely in her world. Her ability for scene setting made that world so real, that I lived every moment with her characters. Thankfully, her books will be around forever, and isn’t that a kind of immortality? As writers, we craft stories, choose words and create characters we hope will touch people. Just as I hope that right now, there’s a young girl in a library somewhere, discovering The Quicksilver Pool–(oh, and maybe one of my books, too!)

Phyllis also had some great advice for aspiring writers–

Ms. Whitney ascribed her success as a writer to persistence and an abiding faith in her abilities. â€œNever mind the rejections, the discouragement, the voices of ridicule (there can be those too),â€ she wrote in â€œGuide to Fiction Writing.â€ â€œWork and wait and learn, and that train will come by. If you give up, youâ€™ll never have a chance to climb aboard.â€

So thanks, Phyllis, for the great books, for the nudge toward writing you gave me, and so many others–and I hope right now, you’re on the best research trip ever, about to write a book for Heavenly Publication.