Habits
I've been thumping the pulpit pretty hard over the last couple of blog posts about creating a daily writing habit, even if it's only a few hundred words. The idea is to make forward progress. But what happens when you're facing a deadline? Or worse, facing a crippling bout of writer's block? I'm not exempt. For all of my preaching, I have the hardest time forcing myself to write everyday. There are some days, (and this is no exaggeration), I would rather clean the toilet with my toothbrush, and then brush my teeth with that toothbrush, than sit down and write. I don't know why that's the case, but I'm open to suggestions if you know how to overcome it. My toothbrush is disgusting.
I'm not the only writer who finds writing painfully difficult. All writers struggle with the labor at one point or another. Hemingway likened writing to opening up a vein. Thomas Mann said that writing is more difficult for writers than it is for other people. Mann and Hemingway obviously knew their onions when it came to writing, so there you go.
I'm strangely comforted knowing that the struggle is real. In the spirit of comforting the rest of you, here are some of the ways famous authors courted their muse.
Mark Twain, George Orwell, and Marcell Proust got completely horizontal and wrote lying in bed. Ernest Hemingway and Charles Dickens, on the other hand, wrote entire novels standing up. And considering the size of some of their novels, that's a tremendous feat.
Vladimir Nabokov wrote his novels using index cards, which he then stored in tiny, little boxes. That way he could write scenes non-sequentially and re-order them any time he wanted. (There is writing software now, incidentally, that does the same thing. Scrivener is the one that I use and endorse).
Victor Hugo wrote naked.
Balzac and Voltaire drank gallons and gallons of coffee. By some accounts, Voltaire drank up to 40 cups per day. Not to be outdone, Balzac drank 50. I like caffeine as much as the next guy, but 50 cups?! How is that even possible? If the esteemed Mr. Balzac slept 8 hours/night (highly doubtful considering his caffeine intake), he would have had to drink more than 3 cups an hour, every hour, to make it. And since coffee makes the bowels move, he would have been on the crapper for a huge part of those awake hours. It's a wonder he got any writing done at all.
If you're struggling with your writing, find your favorite author from above and emulate his writing habit. And for the sake of your bowels, let's hope your favorite author isn't Balzac or Voltaire.
I'm not the only writer who finds writing painfully difficult. All writers struggle with the labor at one point or another. Hemingway likened writing to opening up a vein. Thomas Mann said that writing is more difficult for writers than it is for other people. Mann and Hemingway obviously knew their onions when it came to writing, so there you go.
I'm strangely comforted knowing that the struggle is real. In the spirit of comforting the rest of you, here are some of the ways famous authors courted their muse.
Mark Twain, George Orwell, and Marcell Proust got completely horizontal and wrote lying in bed. Ernest Hemingway and Charles Dickens, on the other hand, wrote entire novels standing up. And considering the size of some of their novels, that's a tremendous feat.
Vladimir Nabokov wrote his novels using index cards, which he then stored in tiny, little boxes. That way he could write scenes non-sequentially and re-order them any time he wanted. (There is writing software now, incidentally, that does the same thing. Scrivener is the one that I use and endorse).
Victor Hugo wrote naked.
Balzac and Voltaire drank gallons and gallons of coffee. By some accounts, Voltaire drank up to 40 cups per day. Not to be outdone, Balzac drank 50. I like caffeine as much as the next guy, but 50 cups?! How is that even possible? If the esteemed Mr. Balzac slept 8 hours/night (highly doubtful considering his caffeine intake), he would have had to drink more than 3 cups an hour, every hour, to make it. And since coffee makes the bowels move, he would have been on the crapper for a huge part of those awake hours. It's a wonder he got any writing done at all.
If you're struggling with your writing, find your favorite author from above and emulate his writing habit. And for the sake of your bowels, let's hope your favorite author isn't Balzac or Voltaire.
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