The Mind Creative DEC 2013
Successful and famous writers have been known to have strange
writing habits bordering, at times, on being eccentric. Here are
some “weird and wonderful” writing practices employed by
renowned writers. Whether their work is the culmination of their
weird behaviour or vice versa, is definitely food for thought.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
In his later years in Cuba, while working
on The Old Man And The Sea, he ascribed
to a ‘done by noon, drunk by three’ routine
in which he would get up at dawn, write
standing up at his typewriter until he’d
emptied his head, then go and empty the
famous Floridita bar.
TRUMAN CAPOTE
He called himself a ‘horizontal author’. “I
can’t think unless I’m lying down, either in
bed or stretched on a couch and with a
cigarette and coffee handy,” he told The
Paris Review in 1957. “I’ve got to be puffing
and sipping. As the afternoon wears on, I
shift from coffee to mint tea to sherry to
martinis.”
HONORE DE BALZAC
Coffee was the lifeline for Honoré de
Balzac’s specially when he indulged in
writing. He would drink vast quantities of
black coffee, ensuring that he could write
through the day and into the night, once
clocking in 48 hours straight.
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