Writers 100 years ago were messy and I have proof.

I’ve grown up on the idea that the writer is someone who wakes up at noon, has a coffee and a cigarette, writes, then some whiskey with a cigarette, then writes again. Well, I mean, have you seen how Hollywood shows us those writers? I grew up on the Californication TV series, and I’ve been traumatised pretty badly.

In one season, the main character goes to New York, sits down at his typewriter, and, in two weeks, has a working draft of his novel.

I mean, what the hell?

Wouldn’t you think there is something wrong with you if you can’t pull off something like that?

And I always thought that I was doing something wrong. I thought I needed structure, I need my first draft to be perfect, to be cool and edgy. Smart and interesting. And when I wrote and saw something opposite, I threw it out.

Deleted everything (Please don’t repeat my mistakes, never delete your work, EVER! You’d want to see your progress over the years, believe me)

And another sin I have is an interest in the craft of how the greatest writers actually worked. I mean their routine, their ways of writing, because I thought if I don’t write I might as well learn how to write, if that makes sense???))))

My previous piece was about how writers promoted their work 100 years ago, and it was really interesting to do that research. You can check it out here:

Hemingway would have posted notes every day

What I’ve found through all these years of research is pretty liberating: the greatest writers were just regular people who also sucked at first, who didn’t know how to do their thing, who also developed their skills as they were actually writing, and their processes were messy.

The perfect writing routine never actually existed. (WHAT??)

Let me introduce you to some of the examples that I’ve saved over the years:

This one belongs to Joyce

Some of them I could confirm the authenticity of by a quick Google, but some of them I don’t even remember, and probably saved just because they looked cool.

My old nemesis Dostoevsky

Honoré de Balzac

As you can see, none of these pages is perfect, tidy, and structured.

They are messy, as all of us are, and I don’t know about you, but I feel so good about it.

This gives me hope that I’m fucking around with words, languages (my other struggle) and plot ideas, and even though sometimes it feels lonely — I know I’m not the only one who has this struggle of words circling in my head, appearing in a plot that never existed before — having that burden but at the same time a gift of crafting it into the world someone might enjoy reading as I have enjoyed reading and enjoy to this day.

Be messy, fuck around, make mistakes, write shitty drafts, this makes you a human.

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