January 8, 2015

"Most authors indulge in little eccentricities when working, and, if the time should ever come that your name is brought before the public notice..."

"... it would be advisable to develop some whimsical habit so as to be prepared for the interviewer, who is sure to ask whether you have one. To push your pen through your hair during creative moments would be a good plan; it would reveal a line of baldness where you had furrowed the hair off, and afford ocular proof to all and sundry that you possessed a genuine eccentricity."

From "How to Write a Novel: A Practical Guide to the Art of Fiction" (1901).

5 comments:

traditionalguy said...

Is this about Scot Walker? His Iowa debut time is about to come.

tim in vermont said...

From the same site, an answer to ARMs question:

Do not dribble at the mouth. No woman desires a man with rabies.

From "How to impress a girl at a dance"

Big Mike said...

@Meade, what are her little eccentricities?

Deirdre Mundy said...

This excerpt almost smacks of Thurber... I wonder who wrote it?

cold pizza said...

I am cultivating a limp by walking in endless circles around my kitchen table/workstation. I only go clockwise so my left leg is becoming slightly longer than my right leg.

I am 74 pages into writing my first 400-page science-fiction novel. I also have an outline for a fantasy novel and a mid-life crisis novel. Then I have material for at least 3 collections of short stories.

But I write slow, because I am constantly walking circles around my table. But I'm pleased because my limp is becoming more pronounced each day.

A couple of years ago I challenged myself to write 100 songs in 100 days. Original lyrics and melodies. But I never cultivated the limp and no one ever noticed.

Perhaps, if I limped more, people would ask, "Hey! Why are you limping?" Then I could answer, "Because I'm a writer. Duh. Buy my book." -CP