
18 April 1974
Snoopy, currently starring in Snoopy & Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie, knows a thing or two about writing and about the writing life.
Here are some of the topics the bookish beagle ponders in the first edition of his wise and humourous collected works, Snoopy Stars as The World Famous Literary Ace (Ravette Books, 1988):
beginning a story
biography writing
characters’ names
drafts
editing
exclamation marks
feedback
how-to articles
marketing
plot
publishers’ correspondence
rejection slips
simile and metaphor.
It’s as good a list you’ll find in any text book about writing.
The book is a slim volume: just 123 of Charles M. Schulz’s cartoon strips. Snoopy, as aspiring author, featured in many, many more.
One-fifth of the 123 strips are about correspondence between the writer and prospective publishers. Not surprisingly, the theme of the correspondence is rejection. You laugh as you read because you know there’s truth behind the humour, hopes and dreams behind the pathos.

30 August 1973
Why so many strips about rejection slips? Because that’s the fate of writing. And, perhaps, Charles M.Schulz had his fair share of knockbacks all those years ago.
Feedback is another major theme of the book. Mostly it’s from the ever-caustic, ever-negative Lucy, never one to pull a punch. But as we writers know, feedback from friends and family – as opposed to colleagues and professionals – must be taken with a grain of salt. (Why, though, would Snoopy entrust Lucy, of all people, with feedback? )

2 March 1974
I stumbled across Snoopy’s book about 15 years into my writing career. (I use the term ‘career’ advisedly!) In 1993 a regular freelance gig (writing about being a home-dad) had disappeared due to budget cuts at The Age and I found myself teaching professional writing.
There were some good text books back then, but most of them were American or British, rather than Australian. (There were, of course, no online guides or blogs or ebooks.)
Snoopy’s book is universal in its depiction of the writing life and I had no hesitation is using it in class to make a point.

2 March 1972
As well as helping with my attempts at teaching, the book helped with my own writing. It gave me perspective, it gave me hope. It made me smile. You need that, sitting all alone putting one word after another.
After seven years of teaching I found that the more I taught the less I wrote, and the less I wrote the more I had to teach. It was time to pull the plug, but not before my colleague and fine friend, Gina Perry, convinced me to co-write a text book with her (Write To Publish, Allen & Unwin, 1999).
I’m proud of that book but I can’t say it makes you laugh, as Snoopy’s book did when I first read it all those years ago, and again just a few days ago. (After seeing the Peanuts movie with my daughter and grand-daughter.)
Thank you Snoopy. Thank you Charles M.Schulz.

2 March 1974
Cartoon strips sourced from peanuts.com
Second-hand copies of Snoopy Stars as The World Famous Literary Ace by Charles M. Schulz (Ravette Books, 1988) available online, from Amazon and elsewhere.
Anne Fowler
January 8, 2016
Thanks for the story Vin – love it. Perfect choice of strips. He was such a brilliant cartoonist. I loved Peanuts.
Fiona Coates
January 8, 2016
That was great Vin! I used to love reading Peanuts, love it all over again now!
Stephen Andrew
January 11, 2016
Nice article, Vin.
You have reminded me of my favourite line about editing, from the humourist Jarod Kintz. He says, “There are only two typos of people in this world, those that can edit and those that can’t”.
Louise Maskell
January 12, 2016
Inspiring. Off to see Peanuts movie on Wednesday. I think I let editing take over my life. Somehow I need to get back to the writing. Twenty-eight years in a straitjacket!