How famous writers forced themselves to work

To write a book you need firstinspiration. However, each writer receives his own muse, and it does not always come and not everywhere. What tricks the famous authors went to find the very place and the very moment when the plot and the characters of the book developed in their mind in the best way. Who would have thought that great works were created in such conditions!

Agatha Christie (1890-1976), having already published a dozen books,in the questionnaire line "occupation" indicated - "housewife". She worked snatches, not having a separate cabinet, not even a desk. Wrote in the bedroom at the washstand or could sit at the dinner table in between meals. "I was a little embarrassed to" go to write. " But if I managed to retire, close the door behind me and do it so that no one interfered, then I forgot about everything. "

Francis Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) his firstthe novel "The Other Side" wrote in a training camp on scraps of paper in his spare time. After serving, I forgot about discipline and began to use alcohol as a source of inspiration. Before dinner I slept, worked sometimes, at night I ate in bars. When there were bouts of activity, I could write 8000 words in one approach. This was enough for a big story, but it was not enough for a story. When Fitzgerald wrote "The Night is Tender," it was with great difficulty that he could endure sober for three or four hours. "Subtle perception and judgment during editing are incompatible with drinking," Fitzgerald wrote, admitting to the publisher that alcohol interferes with creativity.

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) wrote "Madame Bovary"five years. The work progressed too slowly and painfully: "Bovary" does not go. For a week - two pages! There is something to fill your face with despair. " Flaubert woke up at ten in the morning, without getting out of bed, read letters, newspapers, smoked a pipe, talked with my mother. Then he took a bath, breakfasted and dined at the same time and went for a walk. For one hour he taught his niece about history and geography, then sat down in an armchair and read until seven in the evening. After a plentiful dinner, he talked with his mother for several hours and, at last, began to compose with the onset of the night. Years later he wrote: "In the end, work is the best way to slip away from life."

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) spent his entire life ondawn. Even if he had been drinking late the night before, he rose no later than six in the morning, fresh and rested. Hemingway worked until noon, standing near the shelf. On the shelf was a typewriter, on the typewriter lay a wooden board lined with sheets for printing. Having written down all the sheets with a pencil, he removed the board and reprinted what was written. Every day he counted the number of written words and plotted. "When you finish, you feel exhausted, but not empty, but refilled, as if making love with your loved one."

James Joyce (1882-1941) wrote about himself: "A man of low virtue, inclined to extravagance and alcoholism." No regime, no organization. He slept until ten, had breakfast in his coffee and rogalikami, earned English lessons and playing piano, constantly borrowed money and distracted creditors by talking about politics. To write "Ulysses", it took him seven years with interruptions for eight diseases and eighteen moves to Switzerland, Italy, France. During these years he spent about 20 thousand hours at work.

Haruki Murakami (b. 1949) gets up at four in the morning and writes six hours in a row. After work, runs, swims, reads, listens to music. At nine o'clock in the evening. Murakami believes that the repeated regime helps him to plunge into a trance, useful for creativity. Once he led a sedentary lifestyle, gaining weight and smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. Then he moved to the village, began to eat fish and vegetables, gave up smoking and spent more than 25 years running. The only drawback is the lack of communication. To comply with the regime, Murakami must reject all invitations, and friends take offense. "Readers do not care what my regime of the day, if only the next book was better than the previous one."

Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) sketched novels onSmall cards, which folded into a long box for catalogs. He wrote down pieces of text on cards, and then folded them out of the fragments of the page and chapter of the book. Thus, the manuscript and the desk fit in a box. "Lolita" Nabokov wrote at night in the back seat of the car, believing that there is no noise and distractions. Having grown older, Nabokov never worked after dinner, watched football matches, sometimes allowed himself a glass of wine and hunted butterflies, sometimes running for rare specimens up to 25 kilometers.

Jane Austen (1775-1817), author of the novels "Prideand Prejudice "," Feeling and Sensibility "," Emma "," Arguments of the mind ". Jane Austen lived with her mother, sister, girlfriend and three servants. She never had a chance to retire. Jane had to work in the family room, where she could be prevented at any time. She wrote on small scraps of paper, and as soon as the door creaked, warned her about the visitor, she managed to hide notes and get a basket with needlework. Later, Jane Cassandra's sister took care of farming. Grateful Jane wrote: "I can not imagine how you can compose when lamb chops and rhubarb turn in your head."

Marcel Proust (1871-1922) wrote the novel "In Search oflost time "almost 14 years. During this time he wrote a half million words. To fully concentrate on the work, Proust disappeared from society and almost never left his famous oak-studded bedroom. Worked Proust at night, slept in the day to three or four hours. Immediately after awakening, he lit a powder containing opium, so he treated asthma. Almost nothing ate, only breakfast coffee with milk and a croissant. Proust wrote in bed, having put a notebook on his knees and laying down pillows under his head. In order not to fall asleep, I took caffeine in tablets, and when I came to bed, I seized caffeine with veronal. Apparently, he tormented himself deliberately, believing that physical suffering allows you to reach heights in art.

George Sand (1804-1876) usually wrote on 20 pagesper night. Work at night has become her habit since childhood, when she took care of a sick grandmother and only at night could do her favorite thing. Later, she threw a sleeping lover in bed and in the middle of the night went over to the desk. In the morning, she did not always remember what she wrote in a sleepy state. Although George Sand was an unusual person (wearing menswear, making romances with both women and men), she condemned the abuse of coffee, alcohol or opium. To not fall asleep, ate chocolate, drank milk or smoked a cigarette. "When the moment comes to give your thoughts a form, you need to completely control yourself, that on the stage of the stage, that in the shelter of your office."

Mark Twain (1835-1910) wrote "The Adventures of TomSawyer "on the farm, where he was built a separate gazebo-cabinet. He worked with open windows, pressing sheets of paper with bricks. Nobody was allowed to approach the office, and if Twain was very needed, the family trumpeted in the bugle. In the evenings, Twain read the family written. He continuously smoked cigars, and wherever Twain appeared, afterwards he had to ventilate the room. During his work, he suffered from insomnia, and, according to the memories of his friends, he began to treat her with champagne for the night. Champagne did not help - and Twain asked friends to stock up on beer. Then Twain said that he was helped only by Scotch whiskey. After a series of experiments, Twain simply went to bed at ten in the evening and suddenly fell asleep. All this amused him very much. However, he was entertained by any life events.

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) worked three hours in the morningand three in the evening. The rest of the time was occupied by secular life, lunches and dinners, drinking with friends and girlfriends, tobacco and drugs. This regime brought the philosopher to nervous exhaustion. Instead of resting, Sartre sat down on the corridor, a mixture of amphetamine and aspirin, legal until 1971. Instead of the usual dosage of the pill twice a day, Sartre took twenty pieces. The first one drank strong coffee, the rest chewed slowly during work. One tablet - one page of "Critics of Dialectical Reason". According to the biographer, Sartra's daily menu included two packets of cigarettes, several tubes of black tobacco, more than a liter of alcohol, including vodka and whiskey, 200 milligrams of amphetamine, barbiturates, tea, coffee and fatty foods.

Georges Simenon (1903-1989) is considered the mostprolific writer of the 20th century. He has 425 books on his account: 200 tabloid novels under pseudonyms and 220 under his own name. And the regime Simenon did not observe, worked seizures for two or three weeks, from six to nine in the morning, giving out 80 printed pages at a time. Then he walked, drank coffee, slept and watched TV. Writing the novel, he wore the same clothes until the end of the work, supported himself with tranquilizers, never ruled and weighed before and after work.

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a beech at work. He got up late, about nine o'clock, talking to no one until he washed himself, changed clothes, and combed his beard. I ate my coffee and a couple of soft-boiled eggs and locked myself until lunch in the office. Sometimes there was a quiet mouse sitting in his wife Sophia in case you had to rewrite a couple of chapters of War and Peace by hand or listen to another portion of the composition. Before dinner, Tolstoy went for a walk. If he returned in a good mood, he could share his impressions or deal with children. If not, I read books, laid out solitaire and talked with guests.

Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) for 92 years of lifepublished 78 books. The biographer Maugham called his work to write not by calling, but rather by dependence. Maugham himself compared the habit of writing with the habit of drinking. Both are easy to buy and difficult to get rid of both. The first two phrases Maugham invented while lying in the tub. After that he wrote a daily norm of fifteen hundred words. "When you write, when you create a character, then he is with you all the time, you are busy with him, he lives." Stopping writing, Maugham felt infinitely lonely.