ABSTRACT
The ABC television series Castle is implausible for many reasons, not the least of which is its premise of a successful mystery writer becoming a de facto member of the New York Police Department, solving crimes alongside a homicide detective. Despite its deliberate absurdity, the show does express something useful about the writing life nonetheless-that there exists at its core a tension between the practice of a “slow” craft demanding long periods of stillness, quiet, and isolation, and what it is otherwise seen as “real” adventure (and work). Although Richard Castle gets to join in the hunt for dangerous New York criminals, putting the skills he has developed as a writer to use beyond the page, the reality is that a lot of authors spend rather boring lives, chained to desks, and most often at home. The eclectic fiction of J.G. Ballard contrasts to the humdrum Surrey house in which most of it was written. For much of his career, David Foster Wallace wrote in a room painted black in his unassuming house on the outskirts of Bloomington. In terms of literary history, the humble domestic environment is the engine of creative production even if writers tend to tell stories about the outside world and the adventures it beckons.
