5 Hilarious Habits Famous Writers Developed To Be Inspired to Write (Which might cure your Writer’s Block)
So I was looking for a cure to writer’s block online, and that search led me to these hilarious habits of some very, very famous writers. You’re maybe wondering, how hilarious can they be? Some are pretty hard to believe.
Victor Hugo- the Nude Writer
Yep. The man did not like to wear clothes while he was writing. You read it right. Famous for authoring Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Mr. Hugo felt his real self only when the piece of cloth that covered his body was the air around him. As written by a local poet in the contemporary times, ‘In the nude Hugo got in the mood(for writing)’.
Ok, I’ll be honest, that was a lie. The real truth is that Victor Hugo was a dedicated writer. So, when he used to suffer from writer’s block, he ordered his servant to take away all his clothes. This ensured that Victor could not leave the house as he had nothing to wear. In his au naturel state, he naturally had nothing else to do but write. Thus he self-confined and forced himself to finish his books in time.
Source here.
Ernest Hemingway- The Stand Up Guy
The macho writer known for never missing an opportunity for getting in a fight or going hunting used to write while standing up. In one of his interviews in the Paris Review, the interviewer writes,
“A working habit he has had from the beginning, Hemingway stands when he writes. He stands in a pair of his oversized loafers on the worn skin of a lesser kudu — the typewriter and the reading board chest-high opposite him.”
Is that why a lot of his work discusses about standing upright and tall like a man? No way to tell now, but it definitely was a macho scene when he was writing, compared to me sitting in front of an old laptop and thrashing my head on the keyboard in frustration.
Source here.
Dan Brown- Turns His World Upside Down, Literally
Often known to turn the entire plot upside down, the secret of Mr. Brown has been to do it to himself- literally. It’s a technique called inversion. While he’s doing this, you’ll find Mr. Brown wearing a pair of gravity boots and hanging upside down from a special frame to help him relax and concentrate better on his writing.
In his own words, it
“does help. You’ve just got to relax and let go. The more you do it the more you let go. And then soon it’s just, wow.”
So if you’re suffering from writer’s block, just ‘hang in there’.
Source here.
Mark Twain- Sleeping Or Writing?
He has been called ‘Father of American Literature’ by William Faulkner and many other. And how convenient that he did it from the convenience of his bed! Mark Twain preferred to write in a comfortable and relaxing state, and so, like Edith Wharton, Winston Churchill, and Woody Allen, Mr. Twain chose to write in bed.
A convenient place to become a father, indeed.
Aaron Sorkin- Headbutting the Mirror?
While this only occurred once, but it’s worth the mention, right? So Aaron Sorkin plays out the characters of his screenplays as he’s writing them, to get a better idea of the chemistry of the scene. According to his interview given to Los Angeles Times, he was doing this in front of the mirror and accidentally headbutted himself.
Some newspapers have anticipated that he was frustrated with how he wrote the character, or that the character got enraged with his writer and this creator-creation conflict caused it; while others just denounced this as his weak attempt to hide the real reason behind this incident.
“I slipped on my bathroom floor” doesn’t really sound that remarkable.
However, Mr. Sorkin is definitely not a writer afraid to speak his mind. So, he is probably speaking the truth.
Source here.
So there you have it. If you have been looking for a cure from writer’s block, you can try these methods above to see if they wouldwork for you (be careful if you’re headbutting the mirror. Replace the mirror with a pillow, maybe?). Also, careful with the whole writing naked practice. Check if the door is locked otherwise you will need to be creative about what exactly you were doing naked with a laptop in front of you!
Still not seeing any hope? Some more wacky suggestions for you:
- Fill a bucket with freezing, ice cold water and then shove your head inside for 2 minutes. Then let your brain un-freeze and write down the words that come to you.
- Get kicked in the nuts by a friend and then start writing.
- Sit on a revolving chair and have a friend spin it for 3 minutes then try to write or think about your characters or the plot.
- Float on a rubber tubes in a swimming pool and try typing on your laptop.
- Punch the wall and then start writing.
- Write inside the toilet (commode or bathtub or under the shower-the choice is yours!).
Conclusion
I had done this research to help find the cure for a friend and to improve my writing habits. But actually what this effort ended up doing was opening my mind, and re-validate my premonition that, ‘We writers are a weird bunch of people’.
Seriously though, writer’s block is actually a thing and has turned many hopeful, optimistic, and creative dreamers into mere muggles. So if you are a writer who’s suffering from writer’s block, I hope you can see the that there is no one true defined way to solve it. I hope you gather courage and let your fears and anxiety go and find ways to make the experience of writing playful and fun. Just imagine you’re writing to a friend and not to your readers and start typing! (Oh wait, did I just tell a writer what to imagine?)
If you enjoyed reading this story, please Recommend to show that you actually liked it. It will take less than a second but it will mean the world to me.
