Qualities of the Writer: Literate, Hard Working and Passionate

 

In a piece for the Los Angeles Times, "Viet Thanh Nguyen: In praise of doubt and uselessness" (April 14, 2017), Viet Thanh Nguyen, the author of The Sympathizer, which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, related that "acquiring technique" is only one part of becoming a writer, because possessing a "habit of the mind" is just as important. Nguyen wrote:

Becoming a writer was partly a matter of acquiring technique, but it was just as importantly a matter of [...] a habit of the mind. It was the willingness to sit in that chair for thousands of hours, receiving only occasional and minor recognition, enduring the grief of writing in the belief that somehow [...] something transformative was taking place. 

Thus, Nguyen opined that to become a writer, one must simply be literate and possess a good work ethic. But I would add that to sustain a good work ethic, a writer must write about a topic that he or she is passionate about.