Jan 09 2009
Hemingway’s Advice on When to Stop Writing
Writing well is a finicky endeavor. You have to approach the process right or it will slip away from you no matter how much talent you have.
Ernest Hemingway struggled emotionally with the process of writing. He suffered when the words didn’t come the way he knew they should. He exulted when they did. Because he was first and foremost a writer, he designed his life around his literary output. For “Papa,” writing took precedence over being a husband, father or anything else.
Here’s what he said about when writers should quit writing for the day and what they should do when they put down their pen or take their fingers off the keyboard:
“The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck.
“Always stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.”
In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway wrote:
“When I was writing, it was necessary for me to read after I had written. If you kept thinking about it, you would lose the thing that you were writing before you could go on with it the next day. It was necessary to get exercise, to be tired in the body, and it was very good to make love with whom you loved. That was better than anything. But afterwards, when you were empty, it was necessary to read in order not to think or worry about your work until you could do it again.
“I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.”
So there you have it from a master. Don’t stop writing when you’re at a dead end. Stop when you know what the next step will be. Give your writing mind a rest after working. Don’t think or worry about your work during those times. Instead, let your subconscious mind play with it. It will. Between writing sessions, get physical exercise, read what others have written or are writing, and – if it’s appropriate and you’re lucky – make love.
You can read more writing tips from Ernest Hemingway in the fascinating book, Ernest Hemingway on Writing
Someone who hadn’t yet read Hemingway recently asked me which of his books I thought he should read first. My suggestion was to start with The Sun Also Rises
Oh man, I completely disagree! I alwaysalways write if I know where I’m going, until I hit a dead end (or until I have to stop, for whatever reason). I write in my head even when I’m not writing things down, and nothing’s worse than not being able to a word a sentence the way you had it in your head, a few hours or the day before. Even if I know objectively that the sentence is fine, it’s hard to move past it if I think it could’ve been *better*. If I’m in a situation where I can’t write things out the way I want to then I jot detailed notes. A lot of times I’ll even write down the adjectives I’ve thought of! Maybe Hemingway just had a better memory than I do… but it sounds like he struggled with transferring words from his headspace to the paper the same way I do…
(And furthermore, that kind of approach seems like the approach of someone who’s afraid of running out of things to say! It’s easy to forget [especially when one's in the middle of a dry spell, writing-wise] that creativity is endless, and it only needs to be triggered by the right thing to start up again.)