Samuel Johnson took his tea at all hours of the day. He was a fierce advocate of the substance. At one point, Johnson wielded his pen in defense of tea. The attack took shape in Jonas Hanway’s “The Essay on Tea.” Hanway argued against the consumption of tea in England. He even went as far to say that he would prefer to end “the custom of sipping.” In his review of Hanway’s treatise, Johnson detailed his own drinking habits. He described himself as “a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has for twenty years diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning.” Johnson was clearly a devoted tea enthusiast, and he never did have to give up his favorite beverage.
Feeling Blue
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PÈRE
1802–1870
Order is the key to all problems.
—Alexandre Dumas, père, in The Count of Monte Cristo
Alexandre Dumas, père, walked out of another stationery store empty-handed. To his dismay, no one in Tbilisi carried the blue foolscap paper he desperately needed. He had traveled to Russia to attend a wedding in the summer of 1858. After the celebration, Dumas spent months exploring Eastern Europe, eventually landing in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. By this point he’d run out of his precious supply of blue paper. For decades Dumas had been using that particular color to pen all of his fiction. He was ultimately forced to settle for a cream stock, though he felt that color change negatively impacted his fiction.
The prolific writer had selected three colors as backdrops on which to compose. His poetry flowed on yellow, his articles unfolded on pink, and his novels hurtled on blue. Dumas worked at a startlingly rapid clip, and he was willing to bet on his ability to hit seemingly impossible deadlines. He once accepted a challenge to prove his speed by finishing the first volume of a novel, The Knight of Maison-Rouge, in just three days. Dumas won the wager, completing more than 3,375 lines several hours before the deadline. One secret behind his remarkable pace was to let the plot of a story simmer for a significant amount of time before he set pen to paper. He stated, “As a rule, I do not begin a book until it is finished.” Thus, as he sprinted through a new novel, Dumas had a strong sense of the direction in which the tale was heading.
In 1844, Dumas struck it rich with two wildly popular newspaper serializations: The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers. With his newfound wealth, he decided to have a mansion built in the small town of Port-Marly. After three years, the Château de Monte Cristo was complete. Dumas claimed not to have named the mansion, but rather adopted a name that a visitor bestowed upon it, when giving directions to her driver. The grand building was a celebration of the literary world, boasting a frieze of great minds from throughout history. Dumas, an extravagant entertainer, had the following statement inscribed in the entryway of the house: “I love those who love me.” Within the grounds lived a remarkable assortment of pets, including peacocks, monkeys, dogs, cats, and a vulture.
Dumas’s study stood off to the side of the main house. It was a two-story building, sparely furnished, with a study on the ground floor and a bedroom above. A small moat encircled the structure, emphasizing its role as a literary retreat or, if one went by its name, a form of prison. Dumas dubbed his little building Château d’If, after the formidable jail in The Count of Monte Cristo. The fictional spot was based on the real penitentiary with the same name, located in the Bay of Marseilles.
Rather than setting a regular appointment, Dumas squeezed in as much writing time as possible into each day. Soon after he woke, he had a pen in hand. He would dash off pages between errands and meals. Late at night, he could be found back in his study. It seems that his every spare moment was dedicated to writing. When he didn’t have other obligations, or when a looming deadline forced him to focus on a particular project, Dumas worked up to sixteen hours a day. During these intense work periods, he had meals delivered to his study so he wouldn’t have to break from writing.
Round-the-clock writing habits took their toll on the author. He suffered from intermittent fevers that lasted no more than a few days, but prevented him from picking up his pen. He would lie in bed, drinking only lemonade, until he recovered. At one point, Dumas developed insomnia and sought help from David Gruby, a Parisian doctor. Gruby came up with a peculiar regimen to help guide Dumas into a stable routine. He told his patient to get up early in the morning and purchase three apples. Gruby continued, “Eat the first at the Arc de Triomph [sic], the second at the Quai d’Orsay and the third at the Place de la Madelaine. Then return home on foot.” Dumas was ordered to repeat the simple prescription on a daily basis.
Dumas’s work regimen took a physical toll. However, this focus and dedication also helped pave the way to literary success. Over the course of his life, Dumas produced an impressive, almost baffling, quantity of work. In the span of ten years, he completed seventy volumes of novels, plays, and nonfiction books. His final tally of work exceeds three hundred volumes. Dumas was so prolific that some of his contemporaries questioned whether he had personally written everything credited to his name. In fact, Dumas did employ ghost writers to conduct historical research and outline plots. Of all Dumas’s assistants, Auguste Jules Maquet is the most renowned. He collaborated with Dumas on several notable works, including The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. Their relationship, however, didn’t last. Maquet was forced to sue Dumas for contractually owed payment. Dumas’s use of ghost writers has prompted criticism over the years, but many people have remained staunch supporters of the author and his works. William Makepeace Thackeray defended Dumas’s methods, noting, “Does not the chief cook have aides under him?”
Thackeray’s metaphor is particularly fitting in light of Dumas’s following description of his writing process, which resembles a recipe. First, he lists his tools: “Paper (blue foolscap), pens, ink; a table neither too high nor too low.” He continues with a straightforward list of steps: “Sit down—reflect for half an hour—write your title—then chapitre premier.” Then, he explains, it’s a basic matter of calculating lines per page, pages per novel (two hundred for two volumes, four hundred for four volumes). It’s unlikely the steps were this straightforward and efficient every time Dumas sat down to write. And he did note that much time was spent mentally planning his work before he put pen to paper. Nonetheless, he had, like a master literary chef, developed a methodology (and a color scheme) that worked well for him.
The Numbers Game
Alexandre Dumas, père, reportedly said, “My minutes are as precious as gold. When I put on my shoes, it costs me 500 francs.” For Dumas, even a moment spent away from the desk meant significantly less output. He was an extremely fast writer, proved in his bet over the first act of The Knight of Maison-Rouge (see page 22). Over the course of his life, Dumas produced more than three hundred volumes of work. His stable of collaborators played an essential role in hitting that mark. Like Dumas, other famous writers soared through piles of pages every day. For some, the advent of the typewriter or, later, the computer allowed their fingers to race at even higher speeds.
Whether high or low, a daily word quota can be a source of pride for an author. William Golding announced at a party that he wrote three thousand words every day. Michael Foot questioned the claim, and a whiskey-fueled argument ensued. Norman Mailer sprinted into his career with three thousand words daily. Given Mailer’s predilection for fighting, any skeptics would probably have hesitated to dispute the quantity. Arthur Conan Doyle also matched the daily output of these writers when he was at his most prolific.
Isaac Asimov typed a lightning-fast ninety, and sometimes one hundred, words per minute. At this speed, he produced up to four thousand words in just one day. Raymond Chandler didn’t have a regular daily quota, but he could write up to five thousand words in one day. The quality of Chandler’s prose was directly related to the speed at which it was produced. He sta
ted, “The faster I write, the better my output. If I’m going slow, I’m in trouble. It means I’m pushing the words instead of being pulled by them.”
Anthony Trollope was extremely disciplined. His workday began with a cup of coffee at 5:30 a.m. Then he worked for three hours, creating new material or rereading drafts. While he was writing, Trollope pushed himself to produce 250 words every fifteen minutes. He maintained this speed by keeping track of the time and his output with a watch.
Stephen King writes an impressive two thousand words per day, spending as much time as necessary to reach the quota. Similarly, Tom Wolfe would not stop writing until he reached his daily goal of eighteen hundred words. Though his daily word count wasn’t as high as some other writers, Wolfe’s pages really stacked up. Wolfe recalled that the first draft of his debut novel, Look Homeward, Angel, was four million words long. He noted, “I wrote the most of it standing up. I used the top of an old refrigerator for a table.”
The daily quota for John Steinbeck and P. G. Wodehouse dwindled over time. At one point, Steinbeck wrote three thousand words a day, but that number tapered to two thousand. Wodehouse aimed for twenty-five hundred words daily when he started out, but settled into one thousand later in life. Graham Greene wrote five hundred words a day early in his career. Over time, he shifted to three hundred and then finally a mere one hundred words.
A handful of writers sit on the low end of the number spectrum. Once, after a full day of work, James Joyce proudly announced that he’d completed two sentences. Dorothy Parker revised so much that she wrote in a negative direction. She noted, “I can’t write five words but that I change seven.” James Thurber was a similarly obsessive reviser. He rewrote “The Train on Track Six” fifteen times. Of all the words that comprised his drafts, only one-twelfth made it into the final story. When asked if he envied faster writers, Thurber replied: “Oh, no, I don’t, though I do admire their luck.”
House Arrest
VICTOR HUGO
1802–1885
[He] entered his novel as if it were a prison.
—Adèle Hugo, on her husband composing The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Victor Hugo’s quill flew from one page to the next, and the stack of paper on his desk reached an unprecedented height. The twenty-eight-year-old author had been working on the same book from morning to night for months. He broke only to eat, sleep, and spend a precious hour with friends in the evening. These regimented visits didn’t stray far from his book, as the entertainment often consisted of Hugo reading his latest pages. Hugo was a prisoner in his own home. It was a self-inflicted sentence to ensure that he finished The Hunchback of Notre Dame on time. The manuscript was due in a matter of months, and Hugo would incur a fine of 1,000 francs for every week it was late. His publisher had already extended his deadline twice and would not budge again.
Hugo was, at the time, living in a home in an otherwise uninhabited street near the Champs-Élysées. He’d moved there in the summer of 1830, after his previous lease was terminated. Apparently, there had been far too much activity, with visitors arriving day and night, for Hugo’s landlady, who lived downstairs. In the fall, not long after he moved into his new residence, Hugo buckled down to work on the book. The deadline was February 1831.
Hugo procured a new bottle of ink in preparation for the marathon effort, but more extreme measures were necessary to enforce his confinement. He would have to forgo his cherished nightly strolls. This must have been a tremendous sacrifice. Hugo locked away his clothes to avoid any temptation of going outside and was left with nothing to wear except a large gray shawl. He had purchased the knitted outfit, which reached right down to his toes, just for the occasion. It served as his uniform for many months.
In September 1830, Hugo reported his progress in a letter to his friend, Victor Pavie. He wrote, “I am head over ears in Notre-Dame. I fill sheet after sheet, and the subject grows and lengthens before me to such an extent that I am not sure whether my manuscript will not reach the level of the towers.” Hugo’s isolation clearly sustained his productivity.
Though he had virtually locked himself indoors, Hugo did not close himself off completely. He still maintained a small connection to the outer world through an open window. As the seasons turned, Hugo’s window stayed propped open, even on cold winter days. In September he would have seen the leaves turn in the sparsely inhabited area where he lived. In early January 1831, when he was still working on the book, Hugo looked outside and caught an aurora borealis glittering in the night sky. A week later he finished the book, weeks ahead of the deadline. Hugo used an entire bottle of ink to write the book. Though he played with the idea of the apt title What Came Out of a Bottle of Ink, he settled on Notre-Dame du Paris (the American edition was renamed to highlight the hunchback character in the story).
When he wasn’t under such a strict deadline, Hugo spent many evenings walking along Parisian streets, mentally drafting poetry, dialogue, and prose. He was a fearless pedestrian. Even after being pickpocketed near the Champs-Élysées, Hugo continued his nocturnal strolls. Three decades later, after leaving France, he still preferred to walk while he worked.
In 1855, Hugo moved to Guernsey, an island that, though just off the coast of France, is part of the British Isles. He’d been living in exile from his homeland since 1851, after Napoléon III came to power. Hugo bought an old mansion in his adopted country. He spent a great deal of effort on interior design. The rooms throughout the home were filled with elaborate and eccentric decorations.
Hugo’s output was prolific during the fifteen years he spent in Guernsey. During this time he composed his epic novel Les Misérables, among other works. Hugo kept a steady routine in the grand home, which he called Hauteville House. He woke early every morning, washed his face with cold water, and then wrote for several hours. After writing, Hugo ate lunch and then devoted a couple of hours to exercise. One of his regimens consisted of an intense run followed by swimming naked in the ocean.
Hugo’s study, which he dubbed “the lookout,” was perched on the third floor of Hauteville House. With three walls of windows and a glass ceiling, the room had tremendous views of the surrounding landscape. A simple board attached to the wall served as a desk. When Hugo wanted to write, he lowered the board. It was positioned so that he could stand and face the ocean as he jotted down his work.
However, Hugo spent most of his time imagining his work away from the desk. Journalist Maurice Mauris visited Hugo in Guernsey and described the author’s ambulatory process. He noted, “Even in his room he often walks up and down, like a caged lion, making occasional halts either before his desk to write the thoughts that have occurred to his mind, or before the windows, which are always open despite hot, cold, or rainy weather.” Hugo was clearly creative while in motion. Whether inside or outside, he strode toward the next line of a story, a play, or a poem with each physical step.
Taking It in Stride
Throughout history, famous authors have ventured outdoors—into the wilderness or onto city streets. And, away from their studies and offices, they walked right into new ideas, which were later transcribed onto the page.
In his essay, “Walking Tours,” Robert Louis Stevenson praised the virtues of a long walk. He found the practice altogether inspiring. He wrote, “This one, who walks fast, with a keen look in his eyes, is all concentrated in his own mind; he is up at his loom, weaving and weaving, to set the landscape to words.” However, he clarified, “I do not approve of that leaping and running.” In his opinion, one should fall into a steady clip during a walk. Stevenson felt that irregular speeds could be distracting. In August 1876, two years after the publication of this essay, the author embarked on a hike through the Cévennes Mountains in Southern France. He trekked more than 120 miles over the course of twelve days, with a stubborn donkey called Modestine as his sole companion. In terms of pace, rather than being in danger of leaping and running, one of his greatest challenges was simply maintaining a normal walking spe
ed with the slow-moving donkey by his side. Stevenson’s journey was captured in a memoir, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes.
Henry David Thoreau described walking as a noble art that few people had mastered. Thoreau found plenty of inspiration while on foot. He also admired William Wordsworth, who was an avid walker. According to Thoreau, Wordsworth’s servant once directed a visitor to the poet’s library but noted, “His study is out of doors.” Thomas De Quincey estimated that Wordsworth walked around 180,000 miles in his lifetime. Though there’s no map of Wordsworth’s cumulative steps, his poetry offers literary markers for the epic trail. He composed many verses during lengthy jaunts in the countryside.
Robert Frost often retreated to the wilderness. He’d walk for hours alone in the dappled shade of trees. In college, Frost’s classmates teased him about his habit of disappearing from campus. When they probed him about what he did during those solitary expeditions, he retorted, “I gnaw bark.”
As a student at Oxford University, Aldous Huxley would walk for hours in the middle of the night. The nocturnal sojourns helped lift his spirits whenever he felt low. He observed, “Even if one wants to feel depressed one can’t after an hour in the wind and the moonlight.” Years later, he continued to walk. Huxley’s daily routine was quite predictable. He divided his time neatly between writing and walking. Mornings were spent writing. Then, after lunch, he took off into the Hollywood Hills. Huxley would explore the Californian landscape for hours before returning home.
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