If you are willing to wait and work patiently and to live frugally, then find some regular occupation that will occupy half or three-fourths of the day, and devote the other half or fourth to writing, giving the early part of the day to your pen-work if possible. Depend upon serving or teaching or nursing, or whatever you can do well, to keep body and soul together, and do not expect your pen to yield returns for many weeks or months, perhaps years. But, on the other hand, if you keep the steadfast faith within yourself that some day you will reach your goal, your more practical work will be made lighter by your hours of writing, and life will be worth while.
First, cultivate your powers of observation. Keep your eyes open at home and abroad. Note what people around you are doing, their peculiarities of speech and their mannerisms. Study changes in nature's panorama. Open your mind to outside influences, to the happiness and the sorrow of those with whom you come in contact, so that in time you may express these emotions in such clear fashion that the world of readers will say: "Yes, I know a woman who acts just that way when she is frightened," or "Why, I have felt just like that ever so many times." You cannot picture human nature until you know it. The painter transfers to his canvas the thrush tilting on the swaying branch;
