9 Methods from Famous Authors on Calling Every Writer's Monster

When you are a writer, your only work is... to write. Simple as that. Write interesting essays, stories or novels everyone will like - and you are a hero! If you are a writer, it's easy for you to do that, no?

Wro-o-o-ong!

Writers are warriors, and they should beat many monsters to start and finish their writing masterpieces: procrastination, lack of inspiration, research, proofreading, editing, fights with critics, and so one. But there is one more monster every writer has but shouldn't beat; he should know how to call this monster actually.

This monster is productivity.

Three world famous writers we all know and love - Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson - did their best in calling effectiveness and achieving a high productivity level; they knew what to do for this monster to come, and thanks to these methods we are so lucky to read their awesome stories today.

3 Methods from Jack Kerouac

Being a so-called underground celebrity, Kerouac was popular as a novelist and a Beat Generation pioneer. He is famous for On the Road (a novel translated into more than 25 languages, a favorite book of Johnny Depp, and a kind of Bible for all Beatniks).

How did he call a productivity monster?

1.    Candles

“I had a ritual once of lighting a candle and writing by its light and blowing it out when I was done for the night … also kneeling and praying before starting (I got that from a French movie about George Frideric Handel) …”

2.    Medicines (even if you are not ill)

“Benny [Benzedrine] has made me see a lot. The process of intensifying awareness naturally leads to an overflow of old notions, and voila, new material wells up like water forming its proper level, and makes itself evident at the brim of consciousness. Brand new water!”

Kerouac was a fan of such euphoric stimulant as Benzedrine. Thanks to this medicine, he needed only three weeks (!) to finish On the Road and 3 days (!) to write The Subterraneans. He just wrote day and night, and he did not sleep at all.

3.    Confidence

“You’re a Genius all the time”

“Accept loss forever”

“No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge”

These are three quotes from Kerouac's list of Belief and Technique for Modern Prose. Most of them were about self-confidence, and Jack always followed them when it came to his poetry or prose.

3 Methods from Charles Bukowski

Six novels, hundreds of stories, thousands of poems - this is just a part of Bukowski's heritage. This American novelist had his own unusual methods to call his incredible productivity.

1.    Music and drinks

“I drank a pint of whiskey and two six packs of beer each night while writing. I smoked cheap cigars and typed and drank and listened to classical music on the radio until dawn. I set a goal of ten pages a night (…). I always exceeded my ten. Sometimes there were 17, 18, 23, 25 pages.”

2.    Doing nothing

“Pace is the essence. Without stopping entirely and doing nothing at all for great periods, you’re gonna lose everything. Whether you’re an actor, anything, a housewife…there has to be great pauses between highs, where you do nothing at all. This is very, very important…just to do nothing at all, very, very important. And how many people do this in modern society? Very few. That’s why they’re all totally mad, frustrated, angry and hateful.”

3.    Nights

Bukowski was hard to call a morning person: he slept till moon, spent much time drinking and fighting in bars, gambled and hung out with women. But when nights came, he started to create his greatest works we all know today.

“I never write in the daytime. It’s like running through the shopping mall with your clothes off. Everybody can see you. At night… that’s when you pull the tricks… magic.”

3 Methods from Hunter Thompson

If you are a movie fan who watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Rum Diary, you probably know who Hunter S. Thompson is. If not, please welcome: a writer, a photographer and an illustrator who knew how to stay productive despite those controversial methods he used for this goal.

1.    Drugs

“My theory for years has been to write fast and get through it. I usually write five pages a night and leave them out for my assistant to type in the morning. (…) I’ve found that there’s only one thing that I can’t work on and that’s marijuana. Even acid I could work with”

2.    Procrastination

“I couldn’t imagine, and I don’t say this with any pride, but I really couldn’t imagine writing without a desperate deadline”

3.    Noise

“Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. (…) On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.”

And what methods do you use to stay productive?

Written by Emily Johnson from Omnipapers.com blog. You are always welcome to contact her via Google+.