Page 33 - joa-nov-21

MARK TWAIN (1835-1910) JAMES BALDWIN (1924-1987)

Twain working at his messy desk at his home.
Mark Twain, aka Samuel Clemens, author of The Adventures of Tom James Baldwin, seen here in 1963,
Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, rose early Monday through shows that any surface can be a writing desk.
Saturday to eat a hearty breakfast, then immediately retreated to his photo: Writers at Work Tumblr
study. He remained in there writing until around 5 p.m., working
straight through the day and even skipping lunch. Twain’s family was Novelist and playwright James Baldwin is known for many works
taught to never disturb him while he was writing or even come near his including his essay collection Notes of a Native Son. He had unique
study so that he wouldn’t be distracted. If they absolutely needed him, writing habits because he often had a day job. He would begin his
the family was instructed to blow a horn from another part of the writing work at night once his kids were in bed. Even when he became
house, which would get his attention. It was Twain’s habit to keep four established enough in his writing career to ditch the day job, he continued
or five books in process all the time and to continually add new writing at night when he would be alone. “When you’re writing, you’re
chapters to two or three each year to move the process along. “It takes trying to find out something which you don’t know,” said Baldwin in
seven years to complete a book by this method but still it is a good a 1984 interview with The Paris Review. “The whole language of
method: gives the public a rest.” writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you
don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway.”
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (1856-1950)
PHILIP ROTH (1933-2018)

George Bernard Shaw at work in his rotating writing shed at Shaw Corner.
Known for his role in revolutionizing the comedy-drama, English
playwright George Bernard Show sought inspiration in the garden of Philip Roth at his standing desk in his Connecticut retreat.
his Edwardian villa, known as “Shaw Corner,” in a writing shed he had
constructed on the property. While he had a traditional study, most of Before he retired in 2012 from writing, famed American Novelist
his writing happened in the shed, which was built on a turntable and Philip Roth, author of Goodbye, Columbus, Portnoy’s Complaint, and
designed to rotate so his writing desk, which faced the window looking the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Pastoral, exclusively used standing
across the lawns and gardens, always received the best light to work in. desks, with one in his Upper West Side work studio and another at his
Shaw’s writing hut also included “an electric heater, a typewriter, a house in the woods of Connecticut. He keeps his desks near windows
bunk for Napoleonic naps and a telephone to the house which could be but at right angles to the view, presumably to avoid distraction. Roth
used for emergencies such as lunch: surely everything a writer could claims he would pace for about half a mile for every page he writes.
need,” says his biographer, Michael Holroyd. His writing shed not only With Roth’s astonishing body of work, that’s a lot of walking! In a
allowed Shaw to work in and be inspired by nature but to seek refuge 1984 interview with Hermione Lee, Roth shares, “I work all day,
from people. Shaw Corner and the writing shed have been preserved by morning and afternoon, just about every day. If I sit there like that for
The National Trust much as he left it. two or three years, at the end I have a book.
“Writing isn’t hard work …, it’s a nightmare.”

November 2021 31