On writing: The romance of the writer from Hemingway to Gladwell
by Steve
The first of my non-sporting posts on the blog, as trailed in my 100th post. Thank you for indulging me dear readers!
I recently read the Ernest Hemingway book, A Moveable Feast. One thing that was so striking about it was how Hemingway weaves multiple threads into such a short book (140-odd pages), and with such taut prose. For me, there were three distinct elements.
First, it is a postcard, maybe even a love letter, from 1920s Paris. Written with many years hindsight (it was one of the last books Hemingway wrote and was published posthumously), it details his life as a poor, struggling writer in Paris, with a young family. He had simple needs and pleasures, all that Paris seemed to fulfill.
The bookseller told me I’d want to live in Paris after reading the book, and she wasn’t far off. Here is Paris in all its glory, and a life of fine wine, good books and interesting company will eternally appeal. In Paris, a simple potato salad and a cold beer can bring immeasurable joy, as can a day at the races, or fishing at the canal. In Hemingway’s Paris you can be poor and happy.
The second strand, and I’m being a little flippant here, sees the book operate as a 1920s version of Popbitch or Heat, although obviously considerably better written, and perhaps even a little more scandalous in parts. We get Hemingway’s memories of the celebrities of the time, from Ezra Pound to James Joyce, Gertrude Stein to F Scott Fitzgerald. The passages on Fitzgerald are priceless, so I won’t ruin them for you. But you won’t think about Fitzgerald the same way again.
And the third strand is perhaps the most interesting to me. In chronicling his life as a young writer, Hemingway imparts his advice on the art of writing. For me, A Moveable Feast is the most concise and well thought out guide for writing I’ve encountered. One particular piece of advice that I think will stick with me is to always finish a day’s writing with something left to write for tomorrow.
There is also something in the tone of the book that suggests that he looked back at this simpler time as being good for his writing, and for learning his craft. The latter stages of the book perhaps hold a certain regret that life got more complicated. “We were very poor and very happy,” indeed.
But does this romantic idea of writing still exist? The Moveable Feast life will always have a certain pull. I’d love to wander cafés and bars writing, or arising early to watch the day begin whilst plotting my next story.
I think this romantic idea, at least in terms of freedom to write, and to live an exciting, interesting and diverse life does still exist. It’s not Paris in the 1920s, but the Wall Street Journal’s recent piece on how novelists write conjures up many scenarios where writing seems like a very good life. It may be in the routine, or the lack of it. Or in the research, or the opportunity to experiment. It might even be in the choice of stationery (I’m a sucker for stationery, but that is another post for another time).
Malcolm Gladwell’s average day may not have the decadence, the adventure, or indeed the drinking of Hemingway’s Paris, but it still seems like a lovely life to lead, sitting in cafés, searching the libraries and enjoying a great city. A romantic life can be found in the small gestures as much as in the grand acts.
For me, the draw is as much in being a writer, and living that life, as in the writing itself. There is the freedom of having the time to write, and the freedom that sort of life affords. Much better than nine-to-five.
So, in books such as A Moveable Feast, and when reading articles like those linked above, the fascination for me lies as much in what surrounds the writing, as the writing itself. And just think: how wonderful would it be to have the time to develop and indulge a particular set of rituals for writing?
But ultimately, the romance for me in being a writer is in being able to earn money doing something you love, and to do so in any way you choose. Hemingway was a lucky man during his time in Paris, and so are those authors in the Wall Street Journal piece.
And so, wherever a writer may be, they hopefully can find that joy in their lives. And perhaps us amateurs can find that too, even without the security and freedom that a pay cheque ensures. I guess if we didn’t, we wouldn’t write at all.
We’ll always have Hemingway’s Paris, but that is not the only route to happiness and fulfillment.
That’s good advice about leaving something to write tomorrow. I basically got through my university years that way, always stopping for the night when I knew I had at least one more thing to write in an essay. That way you wake up in the morning and know where to start. Hopefully that means you’re inspired to keep going.
As for being poor but happy in Paris, I was taught the same thing by George Orwell and Henry Miller, as well as my own experiences. It’s that kind of city, I guess.
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Dude, you made the wordpress front page. Congratulations!
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Thanks Steven! It is clearly the Harris Effect, what with your wife making the front page yesterday!
Paris certainly is an incredible city – there can’t be many other cities that have inspired as many books, paintings etc.
I really should have plugged your posts on Paris at http://doctorbeatnik.wordpress.com/ – they were a great read.
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I’ve never known two people that I read get onto the front page one day after each other. Good times. Thanks for the plug too. 😀
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No problem with the plug, Steven. It was the least I could do, as your posts inspired this one, in part.
Something I should really have added to the post:
Does anyone have any particular habits or routines they follow when writing? Or how would you go about writing, in an ideal world?
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In an ideal world I’d have a nice study with all my books to hand and a Mac. In reality I have a cramped corner of the bedroom but the books are at least on the landing so not too far away.
One of my routines is to write in pencil, if it is creative stuff I’m working on. Then I take it to the computer and edit as I go along. Gives me a different perspective to write in two different mediums, I find.
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I’m going to pick up “A Movable Feast” ASAP. I would love to just travel the world and letting writing pay my fare. Your article was a much needed read. Thanks for sharing. Violette L. Reid, author of “The First Chronicle of Zayashariya: Out of Night” and “Violette Ardor: A Volume of Poetry.”
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Thank you for bringing up Hemingway. You accurately described what is so amazing about reading him: happiness in the simple pleasures. For some reason a “cold beer” sounds better than it really is once you have it. Reading “A Moveable Feast,” much like passages out of “The Sun Also Rises,” brings forth tangible, familiar pleasures that you’ve looked over a hundred times before, unexamined.
And you hit the nail on the head when you used the word “lucky” when describing writers who can write and make a living off of it. For those of us beginners, the aspiring dreamers, working full time and cramming in sessions of writing in our off time, it is a wonderful yet distant dream to be able to read and write all day. I wonder if it will ever happen, and it makes me excited, driving me to write and write more.
And if it never happens, if my professional world and my writing world never collide, does it really matter? No. Writers, employed in their writing or not, enjoy that happiness you spoke of no matter what. The simple life is the one for us.
Thanks for the post.
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Richard BAch has a great quote about the difference between an amateur writer and a professional: a professional writer is an ameteur writer who didn’t quit.
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Of course, Richard Bach can probably spell check better than me…
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Nice post, and now I’ve got an idea for my next library book – though “writing” books I found are difficult to return as I like to look back at them. Maybe I should just buy it.
Anyway for routines – at night when the family duties have been fulfilled, I can finally write. I put on headphones filled with usually something mellow and acoustic…actually been writing to John Denver lately which is radically different than the usual, but hey its working. I also enjoy a beer or glass of jamesons to sip on. I re-read a bit of what I previously wrote, try not to fix too much and then push forward with new stuff. I’m in rough draft mode, trying to write without editing. Shooting for 500 words a day (at least) until I consider quiting for the night.
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Wow. Thank you everybody for the kind words.
Violette – it would be wonderful to travel the world with writing paying the fare. I’m particularly envious of travel writers, and love reading them. Bill Bryson always seems to be a fun read, and I should read more Paul Theroux.
Paul – some great points there. Hemingway seems to get so much across, but in a really simple way. Something to aspire to, I think. And I’m all for the simple life, I seem to appreciate the simple things more and more the older I get.
Patrick – I don’t use libraries as much as I should for that very reason, books are so hard to return! I’m very much a hoarder. That sounds like a pretty good routine there. The beer or whiskey to sip on sounds very appealing!
Steven – I’d love to one day have a study, with built-in bookshelves. You know the sort that are built around doorways? Lovely and sturdy. Maybe even with a ladder. Anyway, enough of my bookshelf fetish…
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This is terrific:
… how wonderful would it be to have the time to develop and indulge a particular set of rituals for writing?
For those of us who know the reality of a writing life, time is always the enemy, and yet it drops away when we’re in the process, making it even more precious, and fleeting. Rituals would indeed be lovely.
Having lived in Paris, and written there briefly, I recognize that some locales lend themselves to a greater sense of time, and broader permission for our rituals around writing – and living. That richness of living in turn nourishes our writing.
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Thanks BigLittleWolf, oh to have more time, eh? And thanks for the insight on Paris.
I agree that the richness of living helps the writing – if its best to “write what you know”, the more experiences you have, the better, I guess…
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Personally, I think the ideal of the writer’s lifetsyle is simply romanticism.
Lounging around in cafes in Paris? Come on. I’m not saying that these people don’t exist – but any person who brings a laptop or notebook into a cafe or restuarant is a shameless yuppie who is most likely trying to show off rather than produce a good book.
The reality of being a writer – Spending years of effort on something that might not pay off. Struggling to get time to write when your 21 and unemployed, while trying to move out and land a job. Having all your relatives look at you like you bumped your head when you mention your aspirations. Worrying desperately about finding a publisher (if you ever manage to finish the book) and then worrying that they’ll give it a shit cover for some deranged marketing ploy. Worrying whether printed book publishing will last, or whether electronics and kindle will fold in the market. Knowing that if you don’t finish the book and publish it, that when your 43 you’ll probably have a mental breakdown. That’s just some of the issues, before worrying about the story itself and whether its good, or too similar to other stuff.
I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy writing. I love it. I can’t be without it. But anyone who thinks that ‘having a go at being a writer’ isn’t a writer, they are just playing dress up.
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Wow, so many great comments here…the “romance” of writing, much like the “romance” of being in love with an artist sounds lovely and wonderful in theory but not always, I dare to use the dreaded word…”realistic”…ugh…but anyone who has ever read the lines “Paris is a moveable feast” has longed for that very thing…to indulge the desires hidden deep within, the longing for a life lived with purpose. How I would love to be sitting at these cafes, drinking my tea and putting words to paper *sigh*
Fear, and lack of finances keeps me from doing so…at least, that is what I tell myself. Perhaps one day, I will, to paraphrase from my beloved Morrissey, “throw my arms around Paris” 🙂
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Writing is a grind. It can be a humbling experience for most and you just hope a few good words, a sentence even, emerges from beneath all the crap that appears on the laptop screen.
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Well said. A Movable feast was one of the great books of my formative years that made me want to be a writer. The routine (or lack thereof) the ability to build and experiment and yes, the stationary. There was nothing like a fresh compilation notebook and the possibility it holds.
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Steve
I just happened upon your piece about Hemingway. I enjoyed reading it and all the lovely posts it generated. Can’t say I am a great fan of Hemingway, but do love the things he said about writing. He also advocated sitting down and writing at least 500 words before you stop. It may all be rubbish, or good, but least you have something you can play with next time.
Coinsidently, I was listening to the radio this morning and heard John Banville talking about his latest book, but also about writing and writers. He too, has romanic ideas about writing and who does it. Very interesting on how writers are not ordinary people but stand outside to observe and write, therefore have to be apart from living. Also how writers make ordinary things into extraordinary words. Worth a listen http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2009/2745977.htm
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Thank you, Steve. A Moveable Feast is one of my favourite books, not least because I’m a francophile. I think it’s fitting somehow that it’s mentioned in a blog about “consuming sport”.
I am a travel writer of sorts, though I have to supplement my income with writing book and art reviews, etc. There is a romanticism in it, if you are prepared to always grab a bag and run.
Do you travel around Europe? I am based in Singapore, work on a freelancing basis, and know some magazines and newspapers in Asia who always look for travel articles from abroad. If you would ever like to pitch a travel article, let me know.
Happy journeys.
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Hi Steve
Cheers for the tip – I want to read the book because of what you wrote. I lived for a short while in Antibes, down south. I was much younger, it was summer job and possibly the happiest time I’ve known. Back then, On The Road was the paperback that kept me company, (and on most days, I travelled to work on old trains that allowed you to open the doors, even when rolling – and it gave you views of the sea). So much of experience is time and place and your response to A Moveable Feast acknowledges this, I think. That the book recount the joys of an easier, less complicated life, too, has a special attraction.
Thanks again,
TT
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Congratulations on your first non-sport post! It was also the first post I ever read on your blog. Not sportsy but I am a writer so your post moved me to purchase the book. I liked this non-sports post btw do you plan to have more?
Theresa Jane
http://www.fromhousewifetofilmmaker.wordpress.com
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i especially love the part “to always finish a day’s writing with something left to write for tomorrow”. i had JUST mentioned both hemingway and gladwell’s names on my entry- and to see your blog on the frontpage; how uncanny. i think i’m going to go pick up A Moveable Feast on my way back home later! thanks for sharing : )
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Thanks for all these fantastic comments – they have really made my day! I do hope some of you can stick around, and I’m sure to take a good look at all our your sites. For me, one of the best things about blogging is the sense of community, so I really appreciate you all taking the time to post your thoughts.
goldnsilver – I resisted mentioning the ‘laptop in the cafe’ archetype which I’m sure many of us have encountered. I’ve been known to get my notebook (paper) out from time to time to scrawl some notes, but that’s it. I don’t think the technology in public route is for me. I can see some people using it is a ‘ooh, I’m a writer’ prop, but I know that’s not everyone. Some people do genuinely work better in public spaces, so good luck to them. And writing certainly is a struggle, and time is a luxury.
Belle.Dujour – Nothing wrong with being realistic, but nothing wrong with a little dreaming either. My compromise is my girlfriend and I would love to return to Paris and just hang around Montmartre for a week – plenty of time to scratch that itch of sitting around cafes all day drinking wine, although my writing might suffer! And nice Morrissey reference!
Walter – I have to agree. It’s not easy. And I’m never really sure I can tell the good stuff I write from the bad.
Frances Bean – Another stationery fan, brilliant! I just might have to write a post about the wonder of notebooks down the line.
Victoria Palmer – More good advice there, sometimes I guess it is just good to empty your brain and worry about it later, and there’s nothing worse than that blank page. And thanks for the link, I really appreciate it. I’ll have a listen to that link later on.
Clarissa Tan – I do a little travelling, but not as much as I’d like, as finances are finite! Thanks for the offer, that’s really kind of you. I may well be in touch!
tokyoteacher – Time and place is really important, for the writer and the reader. I’ve never really got on with On The Road, but perhaps I really need to get to grips with it on a road trip, not curled up on my sofa!
fromhousewifetofilmmaker – I hope you enjoy A Moveable Feast, do let me know. And, yes, I do plan on writing plenty of other non-sporting posts. I can see the blog evolving into something more general as time goes on, particularly with all these lovely new readers arriving…
dee – That certainly is uncanny. And hope you enjoy your new purchase, and again, let me know how you get on with it.
Thanks again everyone, and apologies for so many exclamation marks – but I am genuinely very excited and touched by all your comments.
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[…] A big welcome to everybody who has discovered this blog via the ‘Freshly pressed’ section of the WordPress homepage and read my post On Writing: The romance of the writer from Hemingway to Gladwell. […]
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After reading A Moveable Feast, I now have this unusual hunger to dine and hang out in cafes and restaurants; walk around town to take notes of the things I’ve seen on that day (I make sure I have my handy little notebook with me all the time). And even if most of the times I’m in dire need of cash, I agree with Hemingway that you can be happy and full even if you are poor. This is probably the best book I’ve read this year and will always remain one of favorites. 🙂
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Goldnsilver: I agree with you. I find it pretty irritating when people bring their laptops or anything that could provide an impression that they are “writers”. Sometimes we try to romanticize things too much (like waiting for an inspiration etc), whereas writing is no different from other profession. It’s still work. But since writing is under the arts, writing requires tons of discipline and determination. Him going ’round town and scribbling notes at cafes helped him developed his craft in some way. Well, that’s how I understood it. 🙂
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You are write so nice. I like Hemingways’novel and I read his novel in Bahasa Indonesia “Pertempuran penghabisan” . Hemingways’novel is interesting, and read his novel not boring. Hi , look myblog in Jendelakatatiti.wordpress.com , thank You so much!
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Yasdr and titi, thanks for stopping by and adding your comments, I really appreciate it.
I can see how the laptop-wielders can be irritating, but I can also see the appeal – particuarly if you’re a freelancer going stir-crazy at home. Maybe this needs to go on my future blog posts list…
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goldnsilver – I resisted mentioning the ‘laptop in the cafe’ archetype which I’m sure many of us have encountered. I’ve been known to get my notebook (paper) out from time to time to scrawl some notes, but that’s it. I don’t think the technology in public route is for me. I can see some people using it is a ‘ooh, I’m a writer’ prop, but I know that’s not everyone. Some people do genuinely work better in public spaces, so good luck to them. And writing certainly is a struggle, and time is a luxury.
Sorry, I think I blitzed your site when I was in a bit of a foul mood, lol. But yes, there are those that work best in bustling environments (maybe I’ve never been to a relaxing cafe – my image of a cafe involves being stuck next to a bunch of mothers discussing their lactating cycles or how Jeremy is alergic to chia latte, beans, ants, honey, nylon etc).
Despite what I said, I have occassionally in public been known to suddenly whip out a small pad of paper from my handbag and scribble furiously in it (it causes staring). I also spent an 3 hour train ride to Paris making notes for a future project (maybe there is something about Paris!)
Goldnsilver: I agree with you. I find it pretty irritating when people bring their laptops or anything that could provide an impression that they are “writers”. Sometimes we try to romanticize things too much (like waiting for an inspiration etc), whereas writing is no different from other profession. It’s still work. But since writing is under the arts, writing requires tons of discipline and determination. Him going ’round town and scribbling notes at cafes helped him developed his craft in some way. Well, that’s how I understood it.
I think we can all agree that the ‘writing poser’ sucks, as do all posers. And yes, I completely agree that writing requires a shite load of discipline (something that I don’t have right now, hence me commenting on the internet!)
Also, I’ll have to check out Hemingway. Someone with a surname that epic can’t be bad at all.
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Foul moods are very welcome here, don’t worry! I’ve yet to find the perfect cafe for writing, or for anything creative. Most ‘modern’ coffee places are hellholes, and I too could do without navigating past the congregating trendy mothers. I’d probably get down to more work or reading in a pub, to be honest, if I needed a bustling atmosphere.
Yes, and the ‘writing poser’ does indeed suck. They are only matched by the ‘reading poser’, with the carefully-thumbed novel of the moment, perfecting that tortured gaze into the distance…
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[…] I thought I ought to acknowledge this, particularly as, for the first time, stationery got a few mentions on the blog, in my post on writing. […]
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[…] was certainly the case with F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. After reading Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, which features Fitzgerald around the time The Great Gatsby was written, the novel itself seemed a […]
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[…] books, ernest hemingway, joe dimaggio, the old man and the sea, writing After this blog’s one moment of international fame, I thought I’d make a brief return to the work of your friend and mine, Ernest […]
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[…] On writing: The romance of the writer from Hemingway to Gladwell November 2009 34 comments […]
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[…] made Freshly Pressed once before, in 2009, when I wrote about Hemingway, Gladwell, writing and stuff. My blog was still in its infancy then and it was a rush to get a whole new bunch of real readers […]
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