Write Anyway

Do you require special conditions to write? When you write, do you sit in a special room; use a certain type of paper or special pen? Many writers have rituals that they must follow if they are to write. Such eccentricities are fine when you are playing at being a writer. However, for those desperate to write, they will find a way to write in unimaginably harsh situations. The next time you can’t get anything done because something in the environment is not quite right, please recall a few of the incidents below.

Stephen King wrote Carrie on a TV tray in the hallway of the trailer he lived in with his wife.

Chicago novelist Scott Turow wrote his first novels on yellow legal pads while commuting by train to his job as a Prosecutor for the Justice Department.

John Cheever would dress in a suit in the morning, ride the elevator to the boiler room in the basement of his building, take his suit off, hang it up and write in his underwear. At the end of the day, he would put his suit on and ride back upstairs.

Ray Bradbury wrote many of his best stories and novels in the UCLA library, feeding quarters into the coin box that collected hourly rent for access to the IBM Selectric typewriters bolted to the tables.

John Wray, author of Low Boy, wrote up to six hours a day on a laptop while riding aimlessly on New York subway trains.

Before becoming a novelist, Charles Dickens worked in a textile mill, monitoring long rows of weaving machines. He walked the rows all day long, stopping only long enough to write a single sentence when he came to the end of the row. He walked those rows more than a hundred times a day.

You may not have perfect writing conditions, but that doesn’t have to become an excuse. Find a way.