There are many ways to write. Of course.
The humorist James Thurber (1894–1961) often did it at parties while pretending to listen to somebody who was talking to him. He admitted this in one of our favorite collections: Conversations with James Thurber (Thomas Fensch ed., 1989).
He also did it when retyping drafts, which allowed him to amplify, shorten, and perfect what he had done in earlier drafts. There’s certainly something to this: retyping encourages a greater degree of rethinking than merely adding or subtracting words already on a screen or a printout. Try it sometime with a letter.
Three favorite snippets from the book:
- On writing fiction: “I rarely have a very clear idea of where I’m going when I start. Just people and a situation. Then I fool around—writing and rewriting until the stuff jells.” (P. 11.)
- Some third-person reporting: “He feels that the longer you work on your stuff, even after it is presumably finished, the better it becomes. Consequently he hates to turn in a manuscript. He would like to putter with it indefinitely—cutting, adding, polishing, or just brooding constructively over it.” (P. 27.)
- On persisting despite his blindness: “I write basically because it’s so much fun—even though I can’t see. When I’m not writing, as my wife knows, I’m miserable. I don’t have that fear that suddenly it will all stop. I have enough outlined to last me as long as I live.” (P. 63.)
Okay. An irresistible fourth: “When Mr. Thurber gets stuck or bored with a writing project, he leaves it temporarily and moves to another. In a recent rummaging through his files, Mrs. Thurber found some 37 unfinished pieces. Among them, she said, was one marked ‘Preface to Something. Hold.’” (Pp. 66–67.)