Surely, dear Steemit reader, you are one of those people who need to do things before, during or after writing. Suddenly you're one of those who have to bathe and fix everything before sitting at the computer; perhaps you're one of those who prefer to eat while writing; or you're one of those who have a good cup of coffee, a glass of wine, for inspiration. Do you know anyone who, in order to write, has to dress in a particular way or just stay naked? Well, like you and me, the great writers also had and have some hobbies when it comes to making their literary works. In today's post we will try to find out what those singularities are, almost extravagances, of some famous writers to make their writings. Let's do some research.

I know that among the most repeated habits is the one that has to do with schedules. Some prefer to write in broad daylight, others prefer to write at night. For example, Arthur Rimbaud, like many others, could only write at night. Russian novelist Leon Tolstoy, famous for War and Peace, and Ana Karenina, was one of the writers who preferred to write during the day:

I always write in the mornings. I liked to know that Rousseau did the same thing. After getting up, he would take a little walk and sit down to work. It is in the morning when the head is clear. The best thoughts come most of the time in the morning after you wake up, while you are still in bed or during a walk. Many writers work at night. Dostoyevsky always wrote at night.

With this confession of Tolstoy we will not only know his favorite agenda but also that of two other great writers: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. From what Tolstoy says, the morning is the best time to write, as the writer is more lucid and the ideas clearer. This practice is probably shared by the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, who gets up at four in the morning and works five or six hours in a row when writing a book.

---

Source

Unlike F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, who always had trouble maintaining a normal schedule. Hence he would get up around eleven in the morning and start writing around five in the afternoon and continue well into the early hours of the morning. Otherwise it was the routine of the French novelist Honoré de Balzac, who slept all day and was woken up at midnight to write. It is also said that he drank large quantities of coffee and preferred to write in a room where there was not so much light as not to be aware of time.

The circumstances in which a literary work is conceived are also innumerable. There are those who prefer to be enclosed within four walls and there are those who choose to go out into the street. According to Jorge Luis Borges, an Argentine writer, he once told us that his best stories arose while shaving; it is also said that Agatha Christie, the best novelist of the crime genre, reflected on the plots of her novels eating apples in a bathtub. A strange case is that of Victor Hugo, who set out to finish "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" between the autumn of 1830 and February 1831, and for this purpose he locked himself in his house without clothes in order to force himself not to leave. In the same order of ideas, there are writers who prefer to leave the confinement of their houses or the four walls in order to activate their muses. This is the case, for example, of the writer Mario Vargas Llosa, another Nobel Prize winner, who once said:

I want to be a good writer, it's my dream. I know that if I sit and wait for the muses to give me a hand, they don't do it. So I take note, I do interviews, I travel, and that effort is productive and at the same time a pleasure.

---

That's why there are some intellectuals who carry a notebook to make notes or simply make notes on loose papers; it has even been said that many have come to write on paper or cloth napkins some ideas so that they do not forget.

This makes us see how some writers prefer to soak in reality, go out, be in contact with people or simply be on the move, as is the case of the writer and filmmaker Woody Allen, who assures us that the best method for writing is to change space or situation:

In other words, if I'm in this room and I go to another one, that helps me. If I go out on the street it helps me a lot. And if I go upstairs to take a shower, that also helps me a lot. That's why sometimes I shower even if I don't need to.

---

Another of the hobbies that a writer can have is the one that has to do with the materials he uses to write. Suddenly you, dear reader, are one of those who first write on paper and in pencil, and then transcribe it into the computer; or you are one who uses only pencils of a particular color; well, that is also the case with many writers.

Source

---

For example, John Steinbeck, an American narrator and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, used pencils to write and made it so strong that he had calluses on his fingers. It is also said that another Nobel Prize for Literature, the Chilean writer Pablo Neruda, only wrote his texts in green ink; and there are those who claim that the French writer, famous for his novel The Man with the Iron Mask, Alexandre Dumas wrote narrative on blue paper, poetry on yellow leaves and opinion articles on pink leaves. Separate treatment is due to the writer of Ulysses, James Joyce, who due to his lack of vision, wrote with a large blue pencil and dressed in white. He said that with the blue pencil he saw more clearly what he wrote down and the white clothes increased the reflection of light on the paper.

The possibilities of writing can sometimes be limited for some, but they can also be infinite for others, to the extent that on some occasions they are restricted by the writers themselves who can afford to set limits. The case of the journalist and writer Truman Capote, who could not start or finish anything on Fridays; or the case of Isabel Allende, known for her novel The House of Spirits, who starts all her novels on January 8. Robert J. Sawyer, a Canadian writer, for example, does not write on weekends and Stephen King, famous for his horror novels, writes no more than 2000 words a day. Unlike some of us who have to seize the moment of inspiration, these writers have quotes with their muses according to an agenda.

---

Source

To conclude, it is worth saying that knowing the eccentricities of our favorite writers, in one way or another humanizes them, makes them closer. And although some exaggerated their behavior and some were more eccentric than others, the important thing in this case is not the methods but the results. And as we have already observed, all these writers have achieved not only world fame, but also the highest literature awards.

It would be interesting to know what those things are, no matter how small, that @adsactly readers have before, during or after writing. Surely they will have many new ones or share many of the ones I have mentioned here.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES:

https://www.abc.es/cultura/libros/20140312/abci-manias-escritores-201403111854_1.html
https://supercurioso.com/10-escritores-famosos-manias-al-escribir/
https://narrativabreve.com/2010/02/las-manias-de-los-escritores-famosos.html

Written by @nacybriti

Click on the coin to join our Discord Chat

---

Vote @adsactly-witness for Steem witness!
Witness proposal is here:

Witness Proposal
Witness Proposal Update

Go To Steem Witness Page
In the bottom of the page type: adsactly-witness and press vote.

Use small letters and no "@" sign. Or, click here to vote directly!
Thank you!

---