All writers have the occasional unproductive day.
I don’t know if Tim Finn (of Crowded House fame) was mis-quoting Orson Wells, when he compared his song-writing technique to the screen-writers’ writing day: “This morning I added a comma. This afternoon I took it out again.” But I did have the privilege of hearing John Irving speak a couple of years ago, and he spoke of a similar approach. “I write long books and I work slowly.” The truth is, there are no short-cuts.
Planet Word provided a similar exchange with Joyce:
“Good day’s work, Joyce?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Write a chapter?”
“No”
“A paragraph?”
“No.”
“A sentence?”
“I had the words of the sentence yesterday, but I got them in the right order today.”
Unless this was a much-repeated subject of Joyce’s – as may well be possible – it too may have been tampered with for television, since I found the quote written down as:
“I’ve been working hard on [Ulysses] all day,” said Joyce.
Does that mean that you have written a great deal?” I said.
Two sentences,” said Joyce.
I looked sideways but Joyce was not smiling. I thought of [French novelist Gustave] Flaubert. “You’ve been seeking the mot juste?” I said.
No,” said Joyce. “I have the words already. What I am seeking is the perfect order of words in the sentence.” (Kaye)”
And so to work…
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