Weird Habits Of Famous Writers

Writers are a special breed – whatever it is you do to get yourself to create, you are not alone. Here are 5 weird habits of famous writers.

Writers can’t rely on the muse to visit or on inspiration to dawn on them. They must get their creative juices flowing. Many writers become proactive; some of the things they do are merely eccentric. Some are downright weird. Let’s take a look at the quirks of famous writers.

Weird Habits Of Famous Writers

1. Famous Writers Who Built Their Own Ivory Towers

Usually, the proverbial ivory tower is a cliché. But for some writers, it has become real! Many famous writers felt the need to isolate themselves. They found out they simply worked better in a secluded space. But it wasn’t made of ivory, of course.

Virginia Woolf, for example, had a ‘writing lodge’ in her country home, ‘Monk’s House’ in Sussex/U.K. She describes building it in her diaries (The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume Four, 1934).

Image Source: Charlotte Peacock

George Bernard Shaw also had such a shed, but with an added benefit. His hut revolved to follow the sun!

Maya Angelou used to rent a hotel room, lock herself in for hours, and then write in a frenzy. She treated the hotel as her office space. She would go there in the morning, write, and then leave when she was done. Whatever painting was on the wall had to be removed. Of course, the hotel staff were never allowed to change the sheets. Again, all distractions had to be eliminated.

Stephen King is another famous author with a writing shed. In his book, On Writing, he stresses that a workstation needs to offer privacy and be free of any distractions.

Not everybody has a shed. But your kitchen table at night, when the house is asleep, may just do the trick. Or you could write in the attic. Or in a little corner of your garden shed. Just find a proverbial door that you can close to shut yourself off from the world so you can dedicate your time to writing. No distractions allowed!

2. Unusual Writing Positions

It may not seem much nowadays, but back in the days of Virginia Woolf, her standing desk was quite the thing. Today, orthopaedic doctors recommend them to everyone working in an office. Ernest Hemingway was also a fan of writing in the same position. But things can get more eccentric.

Truman Capote only wrote when he was lying down. Dalton Trumbo, a Hollywood screenwriter, wrote in a bathtub, as did Agatha Christie. The first lady of crime asked for apples to be within reach. With food by her side, we can all imagine how long she planned to be in her tub!

Vladimir Nabokov and Gertrude Stein preferred writing in their cars. And Walter Scott seems to have written his poem ‘Marmion’ on horseback! It must have been very squiggly writing.

If you’d like to read more on extravagant writing positions, please read this.

3. Extravagant Writing Materials

Legend has it that Pablo Neruda only used green ink to write because green is the colour of hope. Ernest Hemingway used ‘Moleskine’ notebooks (or so the company claims) to jot down his ideas.

Vladimir Nabokov used to write his novels on 3 x 5-inch cards. He would bundle them with paper clips and store them in boxes. His last and incomplete novel, The Original of Laura, was written on such cards. It seems he did not write in a linear fashion, so the cards gave him the utmost flexibility in ordering his ideas.

4. Writing In Their Birthday Suits 

Yes, you read that one right. Before you start laughing, let me tell you that it’s an excellent remedy against procrastination. A famous example is Victor Hugo. He famously instructed his servants to take away all his clothes, then he would hole himself up in his study. The servants would only return his clothes once he had finished writing a chapter.

If we remember that Hugo lived in mid-18th-century France, we also remember that houses weren’t quite as snug and warm in winter as they are today. I suppose Victor Hugo became a very fast writer.

Hugo wasn’t the only one with this curious habit, though. Philip Roth, Benjamin Franklin, and James Whitcomb Riley did the same. In the case of Whitcomb Riley, it seems it was an effective way to stop the writer from going to the next bar.

5. Writers Cultivate Their Weird Habits 

In the 1890s, Oscar Wilde dressed up in silk stockings, knee breeches, and a smoking jacket to look like the perfect dandy. He was the talk of the town!

Source image: Library of Congress

Later, Wilde spoke about collecting exquisite white-and-blue china. None of this, of course, helped him with his writing, really. But it did make him stand out, and it certainly gave people something to talk about. Publicity is everything, right?

Yet the award for weird habits goes to T.S. Eliot. Several of his contemporaries described him as wearing green makeup on his face when he wrote The Waste Land. English art critic, Clive Bell said he thought Eliot did it to look ‘interesting and cadaverous.’

Paparazzi weren’t invented yet, so no one took a picture. But this is how the British newspaper The Guardian imagined his ‘Wasteland look’:

Image source: The Guardian, 23 July 2015

Talk about weird!

The Last Word

Whatever your own quirk may be, you are obviously not alone! As writers, we can secretly relate to all these habits, right? Ok, maybe not the green face makeup… but let’s remember that all these eccentricities have a reason for being. They help writers write. At the end of the day, the job needs to get done.

I am quite sure all writers, famous or not (yet), have their pet peeves and funny quirks. Even readers do weird things. Our eccentricities turn us into individuals, right? Look out for our next post on everyday aurhors, 10 Weird Things Writers Do.

Happy writing!

Additional reading: The Fascinating Writing Habits of 31 Famous Authors & 58 Famous Writers And Their Addictions

Image: (from left to right) Truman Capote, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf

By Susanne Bennett. Susanne  is a German-American writer who is a journalist by trade and a writer by heart. After years of working at German public radio and an online news portal, she has decided to accept challenges by Deadlines for Writers. Currently she is writing her first novel with them. She is known for overweight purses and carrying a novel everywhere. Follow her on Facebook.

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