A Lesson from Ernest Hemingway

 

Here is a quick lesson on writing--or, more specifically, on what to do when NOT writing--from Ernest Hemingway.  Writing about his work room in Paris, he notes:

 

It was in that room too that I learned not to think about anything that I was writing about from the time I stopped writing until I started again the next day.  That way my subconscious would be working on it and at the same time I would be listening to other people and noticing everything, I hoped; learning, I hoped; and I would read so that I would not think about my work and make myself impotent to do it.  Going down the stairs when I had worked well, and that needed luck as well as discipline, was a wonderful feeling and I was free then to walk anywhere in Paris (A Moveable Feast, p. 13).

It is interesting advice that, I suspect, applies not just to writing.