ABSTRACT
Winston Churchill, a proliŽc writer of historical and political material, won the 1953 Nobel Prize for literature. He characteristically wrote while standing, and would continuously edit and re-edit his work until he could do no more. According to Churchill,
Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and ±ing him out to the public. [Manchester 1988]
Contrast Churchill’s view on writing with that of science Žction writer Isaac Asimov, who authored more than 500 books:
Thinking is the activity I love best, and writing to me is simply thinking through my Žngers. I can write up to 18 hours a day. Typing 90 words a minute, I’ve done better than 50 pages a day. Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put an orgy in my ofŽce and I wouldn’t look up-well, maybe once. [Barbato and Furlich 2000]
Finally, author and journalist George Orwell re±ected that
All writers are vain, selŽsh and lazy. [Orwell 1947]
These observations from some of the world’s greatest English-language writers show that every writer is different. My own experiences in writing, particularly books, echo Churchill’s much more than Asimov’s and, I hope, Orwell’s. The trick to successful writing is to structure the writing project so that it is fun, and then the result will be much better than if the project is tedious.
