The Hard Work Of Writing: An Interview With Author And Historian David McCullough

Scott Berinato at the Harvard Business Review interviewed popular author and historian David McCullough.

Americans now hear their history in David McCullough’s clarion voice, the one that narrated the acclaimed Civil War and American Experience documentary series. Still, the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and author of popular and praised histories of Harry Truman, John Adams, and Theodore Roosevelt, among others, doesn’t consider himself an expert on anything. (“If you think you are, you’ll get yourself in trouble.”) He is a storyteller first, who, at 79, is celebrating the success of his most recent book, The Greater Journey, about Americans in Paris, and who says he is “fired up” to start his next book. 

... I’m having a ball. I can’t wait to get out of bed every morning. To me, it’s the only way to live. When the founders wrote about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they didn’t mean longer vacations and more comfortable hammocks. They meant the pursuit of learning. The love of learning. The pursuit of improvement and excellence. I keep telling students, Find work you love. Don’t concern yourself overly about how much money is involved or whether you’re ever going to be famous. I’m giving a talk at Dartmouth this week. It’s called the Hard Work of Writing. And it is hard work. But in hard work is happiness.

You can read the rest of the interview via the below link:

http://hbr.org/2013/01/david-mccullough/ar/1 

Note: The above photo by William B. McCollough is from Simon and Schuster's David McCullough page at http://pages.simonandschuster.com/davidmccullough