Thinking by Typewriter

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB

I HAVE been attracted by that feature of Walter H. Page’s proposed university course for writers, as outlined in the November Atlantic, which requires daily writing, and I should like to give it what emphasis I can by a short chapter from the biography of a “hack.”

Perhaps I had always a vague desire to “ touch the magic string,” but aside from the usual brilliant and edifying descriptions of country stores, railway stations, vacation episodes, and the like, which are implied by two or three terms of preparatory school, I did nothing in the way of deliberate composition until I was farther advanced in years than I now care to remember. After leaving school without having particularly distinguished myself. I experimented for a number of years with a profession with which the accident of birth had made me more or less familiar from childhood. I did not become famous for practical success, but I acquired a considerable capital of technical jargon, and this, bettered by an ancestral example, enabled me to work out a few generalizations for the good of the calling. More precisely, I wrote an article of the how-to-learn-how variety and submitted it to the editor of a class journal. To my surprise it was published, favorably received, and without any previous experience I was called upon to play the part of a teacher. For five years I have been producing a literature, if such it may be called, of a semitechnical character.

How to accomplish thinking has been my problem from the first. After a few weeks the novelty of authorship wore off and a most obstinate paralysis seized my faculties. With publication day approaching at a gallop, twenty times have I sat at my desk in hopeless vacancy, waiting for the inspiration that never came. I talked with ministers, as having at least an acquaintance with the divine afflatus, but they were only amused at my troubles. I searched the libraries. A text-book on rhetoric assured me that I should have an elaborate plan before attempting to write, and that under no consideration should I presume to write a sentence until I had phrased at least a paragraph in my mind. “ If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! ” Having desperately resolved to follow this method, and having sat at my desk for days in succession without the reward of a single paragraph. I fell into a slough compared with which Christian’s was a transparent pool.

Nevertheless, something in me would not yield, and I resolved again and again that I would force thought. Accordingly I began a series of excitements. I tried coffee, opium, physical exercise, dictating to a stenographer, and doubtless stopped short of a phonograph because I could neither buy nor borrow one. I should not have faltered even at alcohol, but that the reaction from coffee left me in such a state of collapse that I was afraid a stronger stimulant might prove fatal.

However, most problems seem to have a solution, and one cannot struggle five years without making some headway. In a newspaper, not long ago, I stumbled upon a criticism of Mr. Page’s suggestion that one learns to write by continued daily practice. As usual I was receptive, and was at once eager for a test. I began to write every day. In default of ready phrases and clear plans I simply sat down at my typewriter and struck the keys. The product at first was mere drivel, but in two or three hours something like sanity began to emerge, and I could then reduce the chaos to order. Details are unnecessary and might be tedious, but I may say that the total results of this latest experiment have been to me almost incredible. In the last two months alone I have accumulated a vast amount of raw material, and have written more finished articles than I usually write in six. I have put not less than one hundred thousand words upon paper, an accomplishment which in the old days would have required at least a year. To crown all, I now enjoy often the novelty of writing an article at the first attempt.

Whatever merits the plan may ultimately be found to have, I am confident that for such hacks as I, this method will most surely develop thinking. I must think while I write, not in advance, and if I set only rubbish to flowing, real ideas will be caught in the stream. The crudities and platitudes which at first appear need not discourage me. A psychologist has said that whatever occurs in consciousness must be introduced, and the most aristocratic thoughts may be ushered in by ragged associates. By daily throwing off a vast amount of trash, I seldom fail to release ideas that are suited to my purpose. This very article, which is now a thing of beauty, I hope, would at first have disgraced a patent medicine almanac.