Writing on Writing
Since publishing The Discreet Charms of a Bourgeois Beach Town, a 150-page collection of my favorite columns and stories about Rehoboth, I’ve had the privilege of meeting all sorts of local writers and wannabe writers. I knew Rehoboth had a vibrant arts colony and a very healthy drinking set. I never realized the area had such a burgeoning writers community. Nor did I fully appreciate what an insecure bunch we writers are.
I know it isn’t kosher to generalize, but, seriously, it’s true. Google “insecure writers support group” and in less than half a second you will get over two million results.
Insecurity, I believe, is the fraternal twin of creativity. It’s especially present among writers because the art of writing is by its nature a very personal and solitary activity. To stare at the computer page and come up with something that’s original, creative, interesting, and entertaining on a consistent basis isn’t easy. Then you put your work out there and hope you don’t sound like an idiot. It’s no wonder writers are full of doubts and fears that never really go away.
You might think a writer’s primary concern would be whether or not people like his or her work. It is, but, believe me, we have more. Writers angst way too much about where and how they write. Truman Capote claimed he needed to write while lying down, and preferably with a cigarette in hand. Ernest Hemingway usually stood up while writing. John Cheever liked to write in the basement of his Park Avenue apartment, near the furnace. For years, Jack Kerouac is said to have made a ritual of writing only by candlelight.
It is important to have a comfortable place to write, if only for inspiration and to feel like a writer. My desk sits beside the fireplace in my living room. It’s a simple pine table with a single drawer and a red leather desk pad. Do you know how hard it is to find a fancy desk pad? Most models today are either black or brown with some sort of calendar paper thingamajig. Bor-ing. I’m a writer, not an accountant. It took a trip to Bergdorf Goodman in New York, one of the few establishments still dedicated to style, in order to find something appropriate. Proper lighting is essential too. I find that a lamp with a 120 watt soft white incandescent bulb throws just the right light, day or night. Not too bright; not too dim. I dread the day we all will be relegated to compact fluorescent bulbs. I may begin hoarding.
Writers I find talk ad nauseam about the importance of establishing a writing routine. Should I write in the mornings, or is the evening time better? Raymond Chandler had to write for four hours each morning. If he didn’t write, he wouldn’t permit himself to do anything else. Some writers focus on numbers rather than hours. Stephen King aims to write ten pages a day. Graham Greene wrote five hundred words each day.
Still others are fastidious about their tools. Vladimir Nabokov wrote only on index cards with well sharpened, but not too hard, pencils capped with erasers. PJ O’Rourke to this day continues to write using an IBM Selectric typewriter. He worries that using a computer would cause him to type too fast and suffer the “sin of excessive speed and quantity.”
Good for them. Personally, I cannot adhere to a strict routine of any kind. I write in spurts. When some idea matures in my head I have to get it out. It’s a very undisciplined way of writing, I know, and often inconvenient, especially when inspiration comes at the office in the middle of the workday or on Route 16 west of Greenwood.
Writers worry about what to write. When the ideas aren’t coming and you don’t know what to say, well, that fear sometimes makes it virtually impossible to get started. Writers then employ all sorts of tricks to summon the muse. Some take a walk or exercise to get the blood going. Others meditate and listen to music to calm down. John Steinbeck used to pretend he was writing to a friend rather than for an editor. He said it freed him up. Whenever he was facing writer’s block, Victor Hugo had his servant take all of his clothes away for the day and leave him nude with only pen and paper so he’d have nothing to do but write. Hmmm…
Whenever I’m stuck, I just ignore the piece for a while. If I’m on a deadline I fix a cocktail. The alcohol jolts and loosens my brain, and the words begin to flow. More recently, I’ve found that stepping into my blue and white striped Brooks Brothers pajamas and black suede Belgian loafers alters my mood too. Yes, I look like I belong at Downton Abbey or Brideshead, but that’s the whole point—to get out of the ordinary and to change your thinking.
In closing, I have to admit that I’ve never really thought of myself as an insecure or neurotic person. But as I go deeper into the writer’s world, I realize I am indeed becoming part of this brotherhood of writers, current and past, where it’s okay and perhaps even expected to be a bit insecure and a tad eccentric even. I’m thinking this could be a lot of fun.
Rich Barnett is the author of The Discreet Charms of a Bourgeois Beach Town. Contact Rich Barnett