[Editor's note: While your Flavorwire editors take a much-needed holiday break, we'll spend the next two weekends revisiting some of our most popular features of the year. This post was originally published July 13, 2011.] It’s an old topic but it always manages to be interesting — what did the authors we love do in order to write what they did? Beyond the jobs they held, what habits did they have that made writing possible? We take a look at 10 modern authors who had unusual approaches to writing; some due to the limits they would impose on themselves, others due to what they would wear or how they would attempt to channel greatness. Regardless of their methods, they have all produced work of lasting value. We might learn a thing or two from them if we’re willing to get out of our comfort zone and see the craft as just that — a skill to be exercised, not a bolt of ideas that comes if you wait long enough. So read on, dear readers, and tell us in the comments section who we missed.
Truman Capote
Capote would supposedly write supine, with a glass of sherry in one hand and a pencil in another. In a 1957 Paris Review interview with Pati Hill, Capote explains: “I am a completely horizontal author. I can’t think unless I’m lying down, either in bed or stretched on a couch and with a cigarette and coffee handy. I’ve got to be puffing and sipping. As the afternoon wears on, I shift from coffee to mint tea to sherry to martinis. No, I don’t use a typewriter. Not in the beginning. I write my first version in longhand (pencil). Then I do a complete revision, also in longhand.”
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John Steinbeck would write a set number of pages per day, or at least tried. He was also an alcoholic, so when he celebrated after work for having written his quota, he’d have a hangover the next day that left him unable to work. The following day after that, he would write the quota plus whatever else he felt necessary out of guilt.
Tickled — and a bit concerned — that my writing habits are similar to Truman Capote’s. Minus the sherry and martinis, sadly.
I always start writing after lunch. I need to drink a bottle of wine (or more) for my nerves and and to settle my shaking hands. After that I’m good to go for two or three hours.
Maybe I need to take up drinking; perhaps that would improve my writing.
Bukowski famously opens his novel “Women” about his writing habits: that for his first novel “Postal”, he would consume a 6 pack of beer and a pint of whiskey every night. He would smoke cheap cigars, and listen to classical music on a short-wave radio. His goal was 10 pages a night. And when he’d wake up in the morning, the first thing he’d do is puke in the bathroom, then count how many pages he’d written. He always exceeded the 10 pages, and had finished his first novel 21 nights.
oops, the novel’s name was “Post Office” :)
A good friend, whose name I won’t mention because it would be taken as promotional, is a very talented, though so far commercially unsuccessful, writer (we are all waiting for him to die). He does not go out of his apartment without a pen and notebook. Then, there he will be, stopped in the middle of a pedestrian crossing, frantically writing down something that just came to mind. He has stacks of these notebooks.
We like him very much.
Isaac Asimov, who wrote approximately 400 fiction and non-fiction books never drank alcohol and wrote with his desk facing a blank wall.
I tend to write best when I have been out drinking and then I come home blast my stereo way up. I developed an OCD to a particular song and if the beat is right I will then begin a poem. All of my poems were inspired by large consumption of booze and loud music. My readers love them my neighbors not so much.
Whatever works.
How are all the actually good ones not here? Writing in a t shirt and pyjama bottoms is not a weird writing habit.
Proust wrote in a sealed off room with no external light. When people came to visit him, he usually had no idea if it was day or night.
Kafka couldn’t sleep when he wasn’t finished a story, and this problem went a long way to the detriment of his health.
Hugo, I believe, would sometimes give all his clothes to his butler so that he couldn’t go outside without shocking his neighbors.
Balzac would lock himself in his house for a month. Later handing his manuscript to his editor, pale and shaky.
Writing requires a lot of concentration and discipline. Total state of relaxation is a godsend.
[...] Flavorwire lists weird writing habits of famous authors. [...]
When I write, I must have total silence and few visual distractions. I have plain empty space I use, and I always set an egg timer for 50 mins and I try to focus only on the writing for 50 min intervals. Then I take breaks before I sit down again for another 50 min round.
[...] Inspiration: What is your writing style? Discover it amidst ‘The Weird Writing Habit’s of Famous Authors’ . I am more of a Truman Capote, I [...]
I think you mean ’50,000′ words a day for Hemingway, which is sort of a crucial point, as I have written about a thousand this morning and haven’t even had my coffee.
Po Bronson wrote his first book – The Bombardiers – sitting sideways in a closet. Door closed. You can find the video on Youtube.
Albert Camus wrote most of his later work at a lectern standing up, due to back pain.
I’m like Flannery O’Connor, who just happens to be my favorite as well. She wrote for two hours a day because she had lupus. I write for two hours a day because I have kids.
I like the tv on or music….i cannot write long hand anymore..the feel of the keys on the computer suits me:: I like to be lying in bed..or at a coffee shop…..or at the coast in oregon to write.. or just sitting back in my scrub pants, comfy sweater, usually black, as i lean back in my chair that has held me for 10 years now..worn and still with a great ::lean back :: feature…
but i am not famous nor even infamous…so my ways of writing will matter not it is what it is…
..although:: keep an eye out for my er graphic book ::I AM JARED available everywhere…and my soon to be released..Wishes of Seven ::if i can get this final edit completed that is :: hmm I should lie down..or put on a sweater and slam the tv up loud :: ::write on!
When I write poetry, this almost always comes from dreams. I wake, sometimes at 4:00 A.M. or whenever, rush to the computer and it flows out. My short stories often come to me over cocktails before dinner. I think about them that night, and write them next day. My book took a few years to finally finish, with 5 revisions. My novel is coming along very slowly as well; this takes more discipline.
[...] his is certainly not the strangest method of writing. As a recent Flavorwire feature illustrates, some of the greatest authors in contemporary literature have had their own [...]
Why is Andrew Kiraly not listed?
I can’t imagine writing an entire novel on notecards! I wrote on them for middle school presentations and covered them thoroughly with writing, but a whole novel is amazing.
Sue’s comment made me chuckle. Gotta love Truman. I would loved to have met him.
[...] Weird Writing Habits of Famous Authors – It’s nice to know I’m not the only weird one out there. [...]
[...] From Flavorwire’s “Weird Writing habits of Famous Authors”: [...]
I like to write while propped on a bed with my laptop on my lap, diet Mountain Dew at my side. Brandon Sanderson writes most of his work while lying on his stomach on a bed, his laptop the floor. I’ve always thought that was a weird pose, but since he has been able to get those WHEEL OF TIME novels out so quickly, I’m thinking about flipping over.
[...] This piece is called “The Weird Writing Habits of Famous Authors” but PERSONALLY I don’t think writing in one’s underwear is WEIRD AT ALL HOW DARE [...]
[...] by Kathleen Massara / Flavorwire [...]
Homer never wrote one word.
The only difference between them and me is that most were men and all had the option of twenty-four/seven to write. For me to carve out a clear week to work on Jolt: a rural noir took months of full time employment in which I could use a vacation. And to carve out the first three months, a broken, dislocated ankle helped during which time most of my writing was done on the couch prone or with a leg up and keyboarding on my laptop.
[...] US: I’m not sure if these are useful in the classroom, but Flavorwire has an interesting article this week: Weird Writing Habits of Famous Authors. [...]
[...] Weird writing habits of famous authors. I like reading lists like these because I like trying to figure out which famous author I’m [...]
[...] on track? A friend just sent me an interview of famous authors’ writing habits (check it out here), and a lot of them kept set schedules- same amount of words/pages, same time each day, in the same [...]
[...] Weird Writing Habits of Famous Authors. I enjoyed reading about the habitual quirks of some of my all-time favorite writers, including Eudora Welty, Vladimir Nabokov, Flannery O’Connor, and T.S. Eliot. (Flavorwire) [...]
[...] I write is weird, but I suspect it’s not any weirder than any other writer’s ritual. Nabokov’s notecards? John Cheever’s underwear? None of these examples seems particularly…I read somewhere that Nicholson Baker gets up before he’s fully awake, doesn’t turn on [...]
I always heard that Hemmingway re-read everything he had written before starting to write (at least on “The Old Man and The Sea”). This helped to keep his writing brief and focused. Whether or not this is true, I have always loved this idea.
Winter is the best time for me to write.I have to feel nostalgic, sad or lost in good memories from the past..
When I am on the back of my lover’s Harley I write on my Levi’s because inspiration seems to abound when flying down the highways &/or observing people along the way.
[...] A fantastic Flavorwire list: Weird Writing Habits of Famous Authors. [...]
[...] http://flavorwire.com/193101/weird-writing-habits-of-famous-authors [...]
[...] Weird Writing Habits of Famous Authors, Flavorwire [...]
[...] A fantastic Flavorwire list: Weird Writing Habits of Famous Authors. [...]
[...] writing habits of some famous authors, including Capote, Hemingway, and [...]
[...] are often curious and intrigued by the rituals of other writers. Vladimir Nobokov wrote his novels out on 3X5 index cards and last summer Jonathan Franzen detailed how he physically damages the Internet port on his [...]
[...] self-imposed. This can lead to some strange work habits. Kathleen Massara’s “Weird Writing Habits of Famous Writers” has some fine [...]
[...] Weird writing habits of famous authors… Should I be worried that none of these seem particularly [...]
[...] Weird writing habits of famous authors [...]
Longhand does not have to be pencil.
Probably should have read “Longhand (Handwritten)”.
[...] Love that classic alarm clock! Related: Dorm Room Inspiration Board for the Mathematics Major. Weird Writing Habits of Famous Authors, from Flavorwire. “Writing while facing a wall, incidentally, seems to me the perfect [...]
[...] Weird Writing Habits of Famous Authors, from Flavorwire. “Writing while facing a wall, incidentally, seems to me the perfect metaphor for being a writer.” [...]
[...] Weird Writing Habits of Famous Authors, from Flavorwire. “Writing while facing a wall, incidentally, seems to me the perfect metaphor for being a writer.” [...]
Yes, where is Kiraly?!
What is “weird” about these?
[...] you, you should pick up the book, We Are All Weird:HardcovereBookAlso, this list is interesting: Weird Writing Habits of Famous AuthorsAre you a weird writer? Why? How? Share in the comments.Disclosure: Some of the above links are [...]
[...] Weird Writing Habits of Famous Authors [...]
[...] Weird Writing Habits of Famous Authors [...]
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A simple and intellginet point, well made. Thanks!
[...] s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })(); This week’s writing links feature weird writing habits of famous authors, Flavorwire’s best debut novels of 2011 (including Karen Russell’s [...]
[...] are a strange, particular bunch, with often weird habits and distinctive manners of dress. Marcel Proust, apparently, was so fond of his velveteen gloves [...]
[...] Weird Writing Habits of Famous Authors [...]
[...] a whole lot of juggling. Who knows? Maybe one day you’ll see me featured in an article like Weird Writing Habits of Famous Authors. Until then, you can bet I’ll be practising awkward writing poses for my press [...]
I remember seeing Ray Bradbury several times with rolls of dimes back in the 1970s in the basement of the UCLA Library where there was a big room full of IBM Selectric typewriters that would give you 20 minutes for a dime.
[...] to the illusions and deceptions of our own creation. We’re a superstitious lot, too, often wedded to routine and driven to fits by our (real or imagined) procrastination [...]
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