The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating look at how several writers get down to business–from writing in blue exam books to dressing in character to collage-making. Some highlights:
Orhan Pamuk:
Mr. Pamuk writes by hand, in graph-paper notebooks, filling a page with prose and leaving the adjacent page blank for revisions, which he inserts with dialogue-like balloons. He sends his notebooks to a speed typist who returns them as typed manuscripts; then he marks the pages up and sends them back to be retyped.
Kazuo Ishiguro:
Since his novels are written in the first person, the voice is crucial, so he “auditions” narrators by writing a few chapters from different characters’ points of view. Before he begins a draft, he compiles folders of notes and flow charts that lay out not just the plot but also more subtle aspects of the narrative, such as a character’s emotions or memories.
Michael Ondaatje:
Booker-prize winner Michael Ondaatje’s preferred medium is 8½-by-11-inch Muji brand lined notebooks. He completes the first three or four drafts by hand, sometimes literally cutting and pasting passages and whole chapters with scissors and tape. Some of his notebooks have pages with four layers underneath.
Dan Chaon:
Dan Chaon writes a first draft on color-coded note cards he buys at Office Max. Ideas for his books come to him as images and phrases rather than plots, characters or settings, he says. [...] During the early stages of writing, he carries a pocketful of cards with him wherever he goes; as they accumulate, he stores them in a card catalogue that he bought at a library sale.
Edwidge Danticat:
She writes first drafts in flimsy blue exam notebooks that she orders from an online office supply store. She often uses 100 exam books for a draft. “The company I order from must think I’m a high school,” she said.
FWR readers, what’s your writing process? Do you have a special font size, pen type, paper source, or ritual?
Thanks so much for this heads up. What a fascinating subject, and I’m so glad for the validation for my dinosaur-like insistence on handwritten first drafts. (They go into the cheapest lined notebooks I can possibly scrounge up, be they from Wal-Mart, Walgreen’s, Kroger, or the stacks of journals left behind in my office by students from years past. [Why waste paper?]) Many of my students look at me as if I have two heads when I tell them I write drafts in notebooks. For me I can’t imagine any other way, but–as your post shows us–to each his own.
I often get a lot of ideas as I lay abed in the morning. I write them down on yellow 5×8″ lined pads and collect them. Sometimes the ideas are general to the entire book (e.g. plot) or specific to the chapter I am working on. I either use the ideas that day or save the collection for typing on a computer and creating a notes file and hard copy. Often I will “vet” my ideas by taking long walks and I also use walks to make choices when there are forks in the plot road. During walks I may record ideas on yellow 3×5″ index cards, which, folded, fit nicely and invisibly in my shirt pocket. I type and revise drafts on a computer–my handwriting is mostly illegible, even to me.
I love hearing these obsessive details; they’re so private. Interesting how so many writers begin with handwritten drafts, which so many people think of as antiquated, and are clearly not. I also start handwritten, in a dedicated notebook (usually a Clairefontaine or Moleskine), gathering steam until my hand can’t keep up with my brain; then it goes to the computer, though I’ll return to the notebook for notes as I work through drafts. Does anyone out there actually skip the handwritten stage all together, or is this an urban legend lamented by writing professors about the “next” generation?
Danielle, I skip the handwritten stage! But that’s because I am a slow and messy writer, and it’s easier to keep up with my thoughts when I type. I do make a new draft every time I change something in the story, though, so my first typed drafts are probably as rough as a handwritten one. And I do take notes in a regular old notebook–for significant details and important phrases that come to me–before sitting down to work them into a typed draft. There’s a particular type I prefer (a Mead 4×6 spiral) for very practical reasons: it’s small enough to fit in my purse, so I always have it with me; it’s spiral, so I can fold the cover over instead of having it open; it has a stiff back cover for easier writing and a pocket to hold scraps/notes/etc.; and it’s college ruled. My past 12 or so notebooks have been the same kind, and I worry about what I’ll do if they stop making them. I have a hoard of about 10 right now and buy the store out whenever I see them.
My favored notebook is also fairly cheap, so I don’t feel the need to save it for anything good, and that takes some of the pressure off. I wonder if that’s why so many other people, both in this comment thread and in the WSJ article, prefer inexpensive writing materials (index cards, blue books, cheap notepads, etc.).