It’s always interesting to
find out how successful authors do what they do. Here are a few examples:
Dan Brown works seven days a
week, starting at 4am. He uses an hourglass as a timer and every hour gets up
and does some push-ups, sit-ups, and stretches. He wrote the outline for the
DaVinci Code in a laundry room, sitting on a lawn chair and using an ironing
board as a desk (I think it’s pretty safe to say he doesn’t see the inside of
many laundry rooms anymore.)
Val McDermid starts at 10am
but works into the night. She wrote a draft of her latest book in only two
months. She told The Writer magazine that working this way is “…not something
any sensible person should do. But this is the way it’s happening now.” She
also doesn’t like anybody to see works in progress. When she’s happy with a
manuscript it goes directly to her agent and editor.
Margaret Atwood writes
longhand to create a tree of characters and notes their birthdays and then uses
those to cast their horoscopes. “You wouldn’t want your character to have the
wrong horoscope any more than you would want them to have the wrong name,” she
told the New York Times, possibly with tongue in cheek.
(Someday people may be writing about your strange habits--if you get that book published. For friendly guidance, see my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers.)
