Okay, are you rolling your eyes after reading the post title? Hey, I think writers’ habits are fascinating. I’ll share mine here and then list a few well-known writers’ habits.
First mine. I don’t write long fiction, and I don’t write every day. To begin, I pore through my notebooks for ideas, then when I hit on something, I start writing by hand or by typewriter, letting it flow, and toss in all kinds of junk from whatever is going on in my life. One of my biggest stumbling blocks is my tendency to be “clever” and “quirky” at the expense of writing a good story which uncovers another universal facet of “the human condition.”
I sit at a writing desk in a room where I can’t see a computer. That way I don’t jump into my shamefully addictive behavior of going online and losing myself for hours. I can reward myself by going online AFTER I’ve written for a few hours. But sometimes writing does go easier on a word processor, so I’ll turn on the laptop and start copying what I have of a first draft onto the screen. That’s like knowing a bottle of Jack Daniels is on the table next to you if you’re an alcoholic trying not to drink. But that’s how it goes for me.
It’s preferable to finish the first draft of a story rather than giving up or starting the next draft, but sometimes I get dry and need a refreshing drink of inspiration in order to finish. So to get unstuck I read good literature which I pull off my bookshelf. Sometimes the writer’s voice will creep into my writing. But that’s okay in a first draft.
Maybe it’s a reflection of my disorganized mind, but my first drafts are a complete MESS. I write so much in margins and every available white space that I can’t read what I wrote. Then I have to go back and make sense of everything. And by that time, I’ve usually moved past the old trajectory, so I have to completely re-think my characters and their story. It’s important to keep in mind that it can take months, even years to write a short story, so that keeps things in perspective: I’m going for quality and depth rather than clever superficiality.
Now some (brief) habits from the greats:
- Stephen King writes 10 pages per day, every day minimum.
- Anthony Trollope wrote 250 words every 15 minutes, though only through the hours of 5:30 and 8:30 in the morning.
- J. D. Salinger had a filing system of character names and ideas written on index cards that were pinned on the wall where he wrote.
- Michael Ondaatje writes exclusively on paper, then ‘cuts and pastes’ his writing using a pair of scissors and tape.
- Issac Asimov never did any editing or revision work when he wrote. What he wrote down was what he wrote, and that was that. He also had two electric typewriters on hand, just in case one died. Apparently, the backup typewriter was out of necessity after he was forced to stop writing after one died unexpectedly.
- Blanche d’Alpuget writes everything using a computer, but once she’s done, she prints out her work, deletes the file, and types it all over again from the printed page.
- Kurt Vonnegut obsessed over every page he wrote. He would re-write every page over and over again, multiple times, until he was satisfied with his writing.
- Jack Kerouac had a list of 30 “Essentials”. He was also known for his constant attempts to get published and as such, would constantly revise, rearrange, and edit everything he wrote, which only resulted in more letters of rejection from the publishers he worked so hard to impress.
- Friedrich von Schiller used the smell of rotten apples to stimulate his senses, and from this he was able to draw inspiration.
- Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette picked fleas off of her cat before she wrote.
- François-Marie Arouet Voltaire liked to use the naked back of his lover as a writing desk.
- Edgar Allen Poe liked to have a cat sit on his shoulder when he wrote. He also married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. Poe died at age 40, the cause of his death has been debated for some time, and has been attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, and/or tuberculosis. He was not a very practical person.
- T.S. Eliot preferred to write especially when he had a head cold.
- Kent Haruf wrote his novel Plainsong with a wool stocking covering his face as he blindly typed in the confines of an unheated basement.
(via: Tom Slatin)
Okay, what are your writing habits? Give it a go in the comments. It will be fun to read.
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I believe you can be clever and quirky while writing a damn good story
I sit on the floor with my notebook and pen and just write. Even if i write about not having anything to write about something usually creeps out. It also depends on the pen that i’m writing with. If i don’t like it i’m prone to tearing the page out, finding a new pen to write with and starting again. I find the best of my writing is the stuff i don’t TRY to write, the stuff that comes from pure emotion.
I use a fountain pen because it flows as freely as my thoughts. I agree. The best stuff comes from the neck down, not the neck up. Thanks.
I love this post. Your little sidenote about Poe literally made me laugh out loud (I say literally because, you know, 99% of lol’s are not really lol’s).
As a person who has suddenly come into much more free time and is working hard to gain some sort of writing habit, I loved seeing all the different habits other writers had. I know exactly what you mean about the computer! Sometimes I will go somewhere where I know they don’t have wifi or internet access (like a small coffee shop, for example) and write on my computer there. Can’t get distracted by the internet if you can’t access the internet!
Also, I totally identified with your comment about the need for wittiness or snarkisms getting in the way. I feel like I need to sound interesting, but then it just creates a stumbling block. But in the words of Genie in Aladdin, “Just BEEEE yourself!” Yeah, I’m really lame. I know. But your voice and style in the post was so engaging – I wouldn’t be concerned about being clever or quirky if I were you!
O_O Holy crap! Stephen King writes 10 pages a day? Well, I suppose that’s entirely possible, but definitely not for me! And Kent Haruf. Hahahaha, thank you for sharing that. That made my day.
A couple of writing habits I have (which are very bad) is to write a couple of sentences, pore over them, and then revert back to the internet. I’m terrible, I know. Another one is to write a chapter, delete it, then rewrite it, and repeat. I’m never satisfied.
Well, unless blind inspiration hits at a time where I’m free to write, I have to set up my scene (so to speak). It’s much easier to get involved with writing if the kitchen is clean, the dog walked, and the house is quiet. My guilty pleasure, some 70′s or 80′s tunes playing on satellite. Cool information about those famous writers, I had no idea. Thanks!