Odd Type Writers

by Celia Blue Johnson

  A composer inspired Jack Kerouac’s superstitious habit, though his Catholic background may have also played a part in the literary ceremony. In an interview for the Paris Review, the Beat writer recalled, “I had a ritual once of lighting a candle and writing by its light and blowing it out when I was done for the night…also kneeling and praying before starting (I got that from a French movie about George Frideric Handel).”

  Isaac Asimov wasn’t nervous about writer’s block. “In twenty years,” he proclaimed, “I haven’t frozen at the typewriter.” Asimov’s fear, however, was that his writing tools would fail him. He kept two electric typewriters so that he could keep working if one broke.

  Leafing Through the Pages

  D. H. LAWRENCE

  1885–1930

  I find a forest such a strange stimulus.

  —D. H. Lawrence, about the Black Forest near Ebersteinburg, Germany

  In an obituary for D. H. Lawrence that appeared in the New Yorker, Janet Flanner claimed, “He had, among other eccentricities, a fancy for removing his clothes and climbing mulberry trees.” It isn’t clear how the reporter obtained this scandalous tidbit, and many people refuted the claim. Lawrence scholar H. T. Moore described Flanner’s report as “ridiculous.” Anaïs Nin dismissed the journalist’s “sensational picture.” It appears that Flanner’s depiction of Lawrence was founded on unsubstantiated gossip. Yet there was at least one thread of truth in her claim: Lawrence was drawn to trees.

  In fact, once after too much white wine, Lawrence decided to fetch mimosa blossoms for a couple of refined guests. The inebriated author fell from the branches, and the women were not amused. Typically, though, he was sober around trees. Lawrence spent many mornings leaning back against the trunk of a tree, with a pad of paper on his lap. And he found more than shade beneath the branches; trees were a source of inspiration.

  “The trees are like living company,” wrote Lawrence in a letter to painter Jan Juta. He was referring to the great firs that populated the Black Forest near Ebersteinburg, Germany. Thirty-five-year-old Lawrence spent a couple of months in the quaint German village. In this idyllic locale, he often retreated to the woods to work on Aaron’s Rod, his seventh novel. The entire book was composed outside, where fir trees offered quiet companionship. Lawrence felt inextricably linked to the impressive forest that served as his outdoor work space. He observed, “[The trees] seem to give off something dynamic and secret, and anti human—or non-human.”

  Four years later, Lawrence sought refuge beneath pine trees in North America. At the time, he was living with his wife, Frieda, and their friend Dorothy Brett. Their home, Kiowa Ranch, was located on a mountain in rural New Mexico. Lawrence would disappear into the woods in the morning. Around noon Brett might look for him to announce lunch. She’d inevitably find him absorbed in his work beneath a tree. Brett wrote, “Sometimes one can glimpse you through the trees, sitting leaning up against the trunk of a pine tree, in your blue shirt, white corduroy pants, and big, pointed straw hat.” If not deep in the woods, Lawrence could be found working on a bench beneath a massive pine that towered in front of the ranch.

  Throughout his career Lawrence basked in the spotted shade of a variety of trees around the world. At Chapel Farm Cottage in Hermitage, England, he sat in a chair beneath an apple tree and wrote. Lawrence worked near lemon trees in Gargnano, Italy. There he reviewed proofs of Sons and Lovers and worked on several pieces of poetry and prose. In Mexico, he worked under the embrace of a willow tree by a lake. And he penned Lady Chatterley’s Lover under a large umbrella-pine tree in Tuscany.

  In 1926, Lawrence received a visit in Italy from friend and fellow writer Aldous Huxley. Huxley had just bought a new car and offered to sell his old one to Lawrence. The idea of driving did not appeal to Lawrence at all. In a letter recounting the incident, Lawrence declared, “It is much pleasanter to go quietly into the pine-woods and sit and do there what bit of work I do. Why rush from place to place!”

  When in Doubt…

  Sometimes the best way to revise is to rewrite. D. H. Lawrence rewrote entire books, starting fresh right from the beginning. He preferred to compose a completely new draft rather than tinker with the text of a previous version. Lady Chatterley’s Lover was written three times before Lawrence settled on the final manuscript.

  Like Lawrence, Jennifer Egan was brave enough to discard a full manuscript. Her first complete draft of a book was a six-hundred-page dud. Egan received no positive reviews when she circulated the manuscript to family and friends. She quickly realized that the book wasn’t publishable. Undeterred, Egan stuck with her original idea but rewrote the book. The result was her debut novel, The Invisible Circus.

  First drafts have tormented many great writers throughout history. Harper Lee was among this troubled set. On a cold winter night, New York City pedestrians may have seen draft pages of To Kill a Mockingbird as they fluttered down from Lee’s apartment window and onto the snow-covered ground. In a fit of despair, she had actually defenestrated her manuscript. Luckily, Lee’s editor was able to convince the frustrated author to go outside and rescue her book.

  There’s always a slim chance that a failed manuscript might be transformed, if left alone for enough time. Stephen King’s The Cannibals was five hundred pages long when he decided to give up on the book. He moved on to other novels, and The Cannibals lay dormant for many years. Then, almost three decades later, he took another stab at the book, only this time he added a different twist to the story. The new version, Under the Dome, was published in 2009.

  Sometimes there is no saving a book. Junot Díaz and Michael Chabon are among literary greats who abandoned entire novels that weren’t working. Thomas Hardy’s first manuscript was rejected several times and never made it to publication. Toward the end of his career, Hardy had given up completely on the book. He destroyed the manuscript.

  Evelyn Waugh had a wretched time launching his career. A negative review of Waugh’s first manuscript prompted the fledgling author to attempt suicide. He survived (and so did his literary career), but the poorly received manuscript did not.

  VLADIMIR NABOKOV

  1899–1977

  I fill in the gaps of the crossword at any spot I happen to choose.

  —Vladimir Nabokov, in an interview for the Paris Review

  Vladimir Nabokov’s home in his final years was Montreux Palace, a Swiss hotel. An insomniac, Nabokov was prone to waking throughout the night. If he did stir and found that a new idea had sprouted in his dreams, he would reach underneath his pillow. There, like a token to the literary muses, was a stack of lined Bristol note cards. Nabokov could record the idea on one of the three-by-five rectangles before it evaporated.

  In his twenties and thirties, Nabokov had worked in bed, puffing away on cigarettes and contemplating one lyrical sentence after the next. Throughout the years, the cigarettes were replaced with molasses candy, resulting in inevitable weight gain. His physical position also changed over time: At the hotel in Switzerland, during his sixties and seventies, Nabokov began the workday on his feet.

  Though inspiration sometimes arrived unpredictably during restless nights, Nabokov kept a steady schedule in his hotel home. He started the day at a lectern that had been plucked from the hotel basement. When Nabokov grew tired, he moved to an armchair. And, finally, when his back needed a rest, he stretched out horizontally on a couch. Nabokov described the shifting positions as “a pleasant solar routine.” From rise to set, the note cards were a constant tool.

  Nabokov originally used note cards for scientific rather than literary purposes. An enthusiastic lepidopterologist, he embarked on annual expeditions in search of rare specimens. The small, sturdy slips were ideal for maintaining observations about moths and butterflies. They were, it turns out, also perfectly suited for Nabokov’s creative process. In his early fifties, he used note cards to draft Lolita, which would become his most famous work.

  Nabokov let a novel simmer in his mind, waiting for a f
ull picture to develop, before setting to work on the manuscript. In the meantime, he accumulated a broad assortment of details from various corners of his life. In an interview for Playboy, he described the hodgepodge as “known materials for an unknown structure.” Interesting turns of phrase, brief descriptions, and observations were all recorded on note cards. Though Nabokov was not sure how each piece would lend itself to the work, he continued to assemble them, while the structure of the story was “uncurling inside.”

  Nabokov conducted extensive research for Lolita. He went as far as hopping on buses to listen to authentic conversations between American girls. Many other “unknown details” were assembled during lepidopteran trips. Nabokov was a professor at Cornell University, and on summer breaks, he set out across the western United States. Whether stopping at a run-down motel or passing through a small town, Nabokov soaked in the scenery. He recorded vivid images that later emerged in Lolita. And when it was difficult to find peace on the road, he shut himself in his car and wrote.

  Once the framework of his story was mentally constructed, Nabokov picked up his pencil and started a new stack of note cards: the manuscript. Rather than building his novel linearly, he swooped in from all angles. The process was, he observed, like working on a crossword puzzle. He wrote and rewrote, often exhausting an eraser before its pencil. After filling in a note card, he slipped it into the pile according to where it fit within the story. Even then the note cards might be rearranged. So he waited until the manuscript was complete before numbering each one.

  Lolita grew at a painstakingly slow pace, and in a low moment, Nabokov decided to burn the manuscript. His wife, Véra, suggested that he not take such drastic action. He took her advice and continued to forge through the book. Véra also helped Nabokov transcribe his note cards. He depended on her to type his work, having never learned the skill himself. Nabokov dictated Lolita to Véra during a trip to Oregon. Three note cards translated to one typed page. (One of Nabokov’s longer novels, Ada, consisted of twenty-five hundred note cards.)

  Nabokov knew Lolita, about an older man falling in love with a young girl, would cause some uproar. He even considered using a pseudonym. Because the material was so controversial, Nabokov also decided to get rid of his note cards, leaving fewer links back to him. After the pages were typed, the Lolita cards were immediately dispersed in a direct reflection of their assembly. Earlier, Nabokov had drawn inspiration for his book on long drives. Now the same cards that held those ideas flew from the car window and onto the road. Other note cards were dropped into motel fireplaces, in the same type of setting where many of them were originally inscribed. Only one hundred note cards with Nabokov’s early observations survived, along with the typewritten manuscript (which was ultimately published under the author’s real name).

  Bath Time

  As a young father, Vladimir Nabokov combined work with baths. Nap times were particularly productive for the stay-at-home dad. While his son slept, Nabokov sat in the bath with a writing board positioned above the water and wrote. Years later, he still incorporated the bathtub into his writing regimen. He required a morning bath every day before work. When asked about his “principle failing as a writer” in an interview for Playboy, Nabokov cited, among other things, an “inability to express myself properly in any language unless I compose every damned sentence in my bath, in my mind, at my desk.” (Nabokov first wrote in Russian, his native language, but shifted to English in 1940.)

  Many writers, in addition to Nabokov, have stepped into their tubs with pen and paper in hand. Somerset Maugham put his morning bath time to good use. While immersed in water, he would conjure his first two sentences of the day.

  Edmond Rostand, playwright of Cyrano de Bergerac, sought refuge in the bathtub. When inspiration sparked for him, it crackled and roared rather than fading into an ember. In order to avoid any interruption during bouts of intense creativity, he took daylong baths. Rostand informed the French diplomat Madame de Hegermann-Lindencrone that he wrote his play L’Aiglon while submerged in water. He was proud of his unusual work space. “I consider my idea is rather original!” he remarked.

  Benjamin Franklin spent hours soaking in luxuriously hot water in his copper bathtub. While the steam drifted up, he read, wrote, and relaxed. Franklin also took a daily “tonic bath.” This consisted of shedding his clothes as soon as he woke up. He sat naked, working in his room, for up to an hour.

  When Agatha Christie was planning to renovate her mansion, Greenway House, she said to architect Guilford Bell, “I want a big bath and I need a ledge because I like to eat apples.” These requests were essential for the author whose bathroom was also a prime work area. Relaxing in a large Victorian bathtub, Christie devised brilliant plots one bite at a time. Her progress, or at least time spent at work, was marked by the apple cores left on the wooden ledge that surrounded the lip of the tub.

  Diane Ackerman finds creative liberation in the suds. “One summer, lolling in baths, I wrote an entire verse play,” she recalled. Junot Díaz is another contemporary author who finds inspiration in the bathroom. Rather than getting into the tub, he sits on the side and composes his work. “It drove my ex crazy,” he observed.

  Díaz’s discord would have intensified dramatically had he followed Dorothy Parker’s example. Parker didn’t write in the bathtub, but she found a unique use for it. She gave two small alligators a temporary home in her tub. She had spotted the pair in a New York taxicab and promptly took them back to her apartment. The tub was quick thinking on Parker’s part. However, she forgot to tell someone about her new pets. The maid encountered the sharp-toothed, beady-eyed reptiles when Parker was out. She left her boss a note that read: “Dear Madam. I am leaving, as I cannot work in a house with alligators. I would have told you this before, but I never thought the subject would come up.”

  Outstanding Prose

  ERNEST HEMINGWAY

  1899–1961

  Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure only death can stop it.

  —Ernest Hemingway, in an interview for the Paris Review

  In January 1954, Ernest Hemingway was in a tiny plane soaring over the Nile River. The author had booked an aerial tour as a Christmas present for Mary, his fourth wife. While they were admiring the landscape, a flock of ibises appeared directly in the plane’s path. The quick-thinking pilot, Roy Marsh, steered down to avoid the birds, but unfortunately caught an old telegraph wire in the process. They suffered some injuries in the emergency landing, but none were fatal (the worst was Mary’s broken ribs).

  However, their rescue from the rural crash exacerbated the injuries. Another pilot, Reginald Cartwright, discovered the small party, packed them into his plane, and proceeded to take off. But after a few seconds, the plane plummeted back to the ground. Hemingway had to head butt a jammed door to escape, and with greater urgency this time, as a fire was filling the interior with smoke.

  Hemingway suffered several injuries in the second crash, including damage to his spine. From then on, long bouts of sitting could be excruciating for him. So, according to several journalists and scholars, in 1954, after Hemingway returned to his home in Cuba, he wrote standing up. However, Hemingway must have written while standing at least intermittently before the crash. He humorously mentioned the benefits of standing on the job in a letter to reviewer Harvey Breit that predates the Africa trip by approximately four years. Hemingway observed, “Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.”

  Hemingway’s Cuban home was called Finca Vigía, which means “Lookout Farm.” Though he had his own study in a tall tower at the side of the house, Hemingway chose to write in the comfort of his bedroom. He created a special work area to accommodate his creative process. A midsize bookcase that faced the wall served as the writing surface. Piles of books and papers lined the shelf on either side of his typewriter. Hemingway would stand in comfortable loafers and lean down on the top shelf to work. On the wall,
beneath a stuffed gazelle head, sat a word count chart. Hemingway typically added around five hundred words to the chart daily.

  Hemingway’s routine in Cuba began with an early start to the day. He allocated the entire morning to writing, working from around 6:30 a.m. to noon. Hemingway would eat breakfast in his bedroom while he worked. During these hours, some of his beloved pets kept him company. At one point, there were about fifty cats and a dozen dogs at Finca Vigía. Hemingway’s favorite four-legged friends were Black Dog, a springer spaniel, and Boise, a cat (see page 77). He wrote about Black Dog in a letter to Breit: “He knows my writing is in some way connected to sizzling steaks so he spends all his time getting me to the typewriter.”

  Thornton Wilder claimed that Hemingway began each workday by sharpening twenty pencils. In a later interview with George Plimpton for the Paris Review, Hemingway refuted the notion of even owning that many pencils. He stated, “Wearing down seven number-two pencils is a good day’s work.”

  Still, pencils were undisputedly Hemingway’s favorite medium for his first drafts. He observed, “If you write with a pencil you get three different sights at it to see if the reader is getting what you want him to. First when you read it over; then when it is typed you get another chance to improve it, and again in the proof. Writing it first in pencil gives you one-third more chance to improve it.”