John Cheever wrote in his underwear. You can’t argue with the results.
For millennia writers and artists have been resorting to interesting and sometimes bizarre ways to contact their imaginary friends. You can’t tell me some Neanderthal somewhere didn’t draw a stick man on the wall of his mammoth bone house, stare at it for hours, before throwing a tantrum and running out to club a wildebeest instead. Those wildebeest are a terrible distraction, and yet I hear their siren song every time I sit down at this keyboard lately. Even a deadline isn’t helping me. Ever wonder why it’s called a deadline?
So in a further effort to avoid actually achieving anything today I decided to read up on how other writers managed their empty heads. Of course none of these geniuses would have written a word if they had access to You Tube (I must disable that somehow...)
Truman Capote wrote supine. He reclined on a sofa and wrote with a martini in one hand. As the day wore on so did the strength of the drinks. I tried this. Lost an olive down my cleavage, dropped my laptop on my face and almost chipped a tooth.
Victor Hugo wrote naked. He even had his valet hide his clothes so he couldn’t go out and couldn’t receive visitors. Well, I don’t live alone and clearly don’t have the same relationship with my house mate as Victor had with his valet.
Dan Brown writes for an hour then drops to the floor for a round of pushups, only proving he’s as annoying in the process as he is in the finished product.
Hemingway wrote his 500 words a day standing up at his typewriter, as if trying to squeeze out something worthwhile isn’t punishing enough. I don’t even like standing up in the shower. I’ve been looking into those rubber footed shower chairs for old people with vertigo.
Hunter S. Thompson got up at 3.00pm. He did four lines of cocaine, ate lunch, drank whiskey, did some acid, and got his best work done after midnight. And I’m looking into rubber footed shower chairs...
So here I sit, sit, with a glass of red, fully dressed with no underwear on, and a fat black cat making more sense than I am. And they wonder why Amy Lowell switched to cigars...
