When you wake up early in the morning but are stuck on the road and look like you are going to be late, when there are too many tasks to do and you don't know what to start, when Party A makes you panic when you cry out a "dear", when you can't sleep when you are noisy by the huge wind outside the window, what will you do to comfort yourself? Shop Taobao to buy, buy and buy, flip through Weibo hot search to see if there is anything interesting, whether hungry or not, you have to eat something, click on the playlist that can make you most away from reality of the song...
Everyone has a habit of "very egotistical" comforting themselves. We are supported by them, overcoming every moment when the slightest anger is about to erupt.
For writers, there is a positive correlation between mood and fluency in the writing process. In order to create classic works that transcend time, and to please themselves, writers have developed a variety of writing habits. Here are the writers' views on a certain object, a certain action, a certain atmosphere, a certain color, a certain moment... Obsession. In the process of reading this collection of writer's habits, you may sigh from time to time: "This is how "xxx" was written."
The most flavorful fetish
The literary circle has never lacked examples of "literati being light on each other", nor has there been no lack of friendships that ended suddenly without warning, but it also left several friendships in which the two sides did not look at each other at first sight, sparked at a certain node, and finally could not be separated. Between Goethe and Schiller, the last one, the sculptures of the good friends stand side by side in the square in front of the German Theatre Royal. According to statistics, the two exchanged a total of one thousand and five letters, and the relationship was so good that "each felt that they could not live without each other."
However, after the literary rising star Schiller first met his half-idol, Goethe, Schiller completely lost his powder. He wrote a letter to his friend Korner, frantically complaining about Goethe: "I really think he's an unusually selfish man... You can't let such a person appear beside you."
Six years later, the Law of True Fragrance came into play. There are many factors that trigger the law of true incense, such as Goethe's constant change of women that is not understood by his friends; the officialdom changes Goethe's personality; and Schiller's appointment to the cultural celebrity Goethe in order to start the magazine "Goddess of the Seasons". This friendship meant that Goethe had a pass to enter Schiller's house at any time.
Just as Schiller escaped from the army in order to write, the writer who abandoned the medical profession hated to find his guests, especially the uninvited guests, in order to monopolize his own attention. Schiller would put disgust and anger on his face to "repel" guests who hadn't made an appointment in advance. Goethe, on the other hand, did not need to greet him in advance and could brush his face at any time to enter Schiller's home.
Because of this, Goethe had the opportunity to discover the unique writing habits of this good friend. Once, Goethe stopped by to see a good friend. Unfortunately, Schiller went out. The prolific Goethe did not miss all opportunities to create, and he sat down at Schiller's desk and began his own writing. However, a strong smell made it impossible for him to concentrate.
The source of the stench is actually in the desk. Schiller filled his desk drawer with rotten apples. This stink that can smudge Goethe, in Schiller's case, can bring inspiration to the "muse".
Surrounded by the smell of apple rot, Schiller used words to chase freedom, creating a free spiritual space for German youth.
In the world's big clock, joy is the driving force that drives the gears. She makes buds bloom into flowers, she makes the sun shine in the sky, she makes celestial bodies invisible to telescopes, she makes them rotate in space. Brethren! Please rejoice, march forward on the journey of life, run like a planet in the sky, and walk happily to victory like a hero. Ode to Joy
The most deadly fetish
Douban has a group called "Drink Coffee to Death", and Balzac should be one of the spiritual idols of this group. According to some statistics, Balzac drank 50,000 cups of coffee in his lifetime, an average of 6-7 cups per day. It is also said that he drinks fifty cups of coffee every day.
The New Yorker's short video of Balzac's Fifty Cups of Coffee
Brendan O'Hare, author of The New Yorker, once portrayed Balzac's day with coffee as the protagonist:
Cup 1: Ah! A good day starts with a delicious cup of hot coffee. Cup 2: Coffee #2 is about to enter my stomach. ...... Cup Four: Oops, too much cream. Luckily, I still have 45 chances to correct this error. Fifth cup: Bad cream put more. ...... Cup Nine: "The more a man likes to comment, the less he will love" is from my Marriage Physiology. Actually, this sentence is about coffee. When I keep complaining about cream, I should keep this saying in mind. Cup 10: What a lucky drink, after which I get up and start what I do best: writing and making up stories. ...... Cup Forty-Four: Yes, the chest cavity is the prison of the heart, the heart is the prisoner of the chest cavity! ...... Cup Forty-Six: All the organs, blood, and bones in our bodies are also prisoners. Their prison is skin. ......
Balzac was not born addicted to coffee, and he was forced to embark on this path. Like most parents today, Balzac's parents wanted their son to enter the system as a civil servant after college. And a law major is the best choice for these parents.
After graduating from high school, Balzac entered the Faculty of Law of the University of Paris according to his father's wishes. After graduating from college, the family got Balzac a job in a notary firm, and Balzac wanted to become a professional writer. Fortunately, although Balzac's parents did not approve of their son's choice, they chose to support their son's hobby without lack of money. There was an agreement between them: for two years, Balzac could do nothing but write what he wanted to write. When the time came, if Balzac could not mix in the literary circle, he would have to obediently go to the firm to become a civil servant.
During these two years, Balzac became obsessed with coffee. The pressure to write something and the two-year deadline made him more and more dependent on coffee. With coffee, he can write from day to night. Cromwell, however, received this evaluation — "The author can do whatever he wants, just don't do literature."
In order to achieve financial independence and antagonize his parents, balzac wrote different types of popular novels under various pseudonyms after the failure of Cromwell. If you want to make more money, you have to write more novels, and you need to drink more coffee.
Coffee became one of his assistants to get rid of his parents. To some extent, however, coffee led to his death. Over-citing coffee is one of the reasons he suffers from heart hypertrophy. In 1850, a heart broken by coffee could no longer serve Balzac, and Balzac died at the age of 51.
In On Modern Stimulants, Balzac put it this way about coffee:
Many people think that coffee can stimulate intelligence; but please be aware that annoying people only make coffee more annoying. In short, although Parisian food stores are open until midnight, some writers do not become more amused by this.
Before he became famous, Balzac's theme in life was "rebellion against his parents." In order to get farther away from home, he fully devoted himself to literary creation in the company of coffee, which was a stimulant. "A person can make a lot of black words fall on white paper in twelve hours" "Poor pen!" It should be made of diamonds so that it won't be used so quickly! ”
There is another side to the truth, it is the internship job that his father found for Balzac, which gave him the opportunity to see the evils under the prosperity of France, understand the human story of France, and accumulate material for future creations.
The most incomprehensible fetish
There are not a few writers who use their pets as muses, and T. S. Eliot dedicates a copy of the Old Possum's Cat Sutra to his cat Jerry Roland; Hemingway's cat Boise works with him.
Camelot, a French writer of the first half of the 20th century, was accompanied by a French bulldog, Susie. Our way of touching fish is to brush Weibo, visit Taobao, and brush Weibo. Probably no one can guess what Camelot does to pass the time when he doesn't want to write an article. She would call Susie to her side and catch fleas for Susie until inspiration struck. There were also ten cats waiting to write the article stuck with Camelot.
Movie "Camelot"
Laziest fetish (everyone wants to try it)
The American writer Capote once wrote a short story about Camelot, "The White Rose." Compared to Camelot's incomprehensible writing habits, Capote's writing habits are too grounded. He positioned himself as a "horizontal" writer.
"I can only think when I lie down, whether lying on the bed or spread out on a couch, cigarettes and coffee at my fingertips."
Movie "Capote"
As time passed, Capot switched hands on drinks, from coffee to mint tea, to sherry, and finally martini. Capote lay writing from ten o'clock in the night until four o'clock in the morning. By the time he was writing Cold Blood, which caused a stir in the literary world, Capote had broken his "bad habit" of writing at night, but he still had to lie down to create.
The most tiring fetish (you definitely don't want to try)
In complete contrast to Capote, literary tough guy Hemingway likes to stand and write. It is unknown when this tiring habit was formed, but what is certain is that the 1954 air crash injured Hemingway's spine and, after returning from Africa, he had to stand and write.
In addition to writing while standing, Hemingway needed a pencil. Before the advent of computers, the literary circle broke up with the Writing Party and the Typewriter Party. The Handwriting Party, on the other hand, can be divided into two camps, the Pencil Party and the Pen Party. Hemingway was one of the representatives of the Pencil Party. There was a rumor that he could use up twenty pencils a day. But in an interview with the Paris Review, he debunked the rumors. If written smoothly, Hemingway used up to seven pencils a day.
Hemingway Manuscripts
Hemingway's pen pen preference came from a linguistic fetish. In the process of creation, he constantly searched for the most accurate words, the most concise sentences. At the end of Farewell, Weapon, Hemingway changed it thirty-nine times. Hemingway's writing is not concave, only showing the most energetic side. Writing with a pencil can make it easier to revise over and over again later.
I thought: I see you, Beauty, you belong to me now, no matter who you are waiting for, whether I can see you again. You belong to me, the whole of Paris belongs to me, and I belong to this notebook and this pencil. A Feast of Flow
The most laid-back fetish
"Queen of Detective Fiction" Agatha Christie, who used the pen name Mary Wismarcott, has published six romance novels. Agatha writes about the entanglements and contradictions of love without any violation. Her writing habit looks more like it was formed when she was writing romance novels—lying in a Victorian retro-style bathtub, eating apples and conceiving at the same time.
The bathtub also brought comfort to Nabokov. When the children had taken a nap, in the room that had finally calmed down, Nabokov liked to lie in the bathtub and let the water and inspiration flood him.
And One of the most outstanding Contemporary American writers, Juno Díaz, does not lie down in the bathtub, but prefers to sit next to the bathtub.
Writers have built themselves a writing space with their own strange habits, in which there is only time and literature. Watching the writers' strange habits, there is a thrill of living across from them, holding a telescope, and peering into their lives. In addition to coolness, those unique habits seem to open a door for the reader to enter the writer's writing space, and this door is a hidden door that does not normally appear.
In this "Strange Writer", there are more writers with strange habits waiting for you, come and peek!
Author: [U.S.] Celia Blue Johnson
Publisher: Guangxi Normal University Press
Subtitle: From Schiller's Rotten Apple to O'Connor's Sweet Tooth
Translator: Song Ninggang