Rewriting is at the heart of the operation. It takes at least four pages to get a single one that is clean. He writes in longhand, then types it on a typewriter. In this respect he is defiantly unevolved.
“When I started to write,” he says, “I just used a typewriter and crossed out lines with Xs. It took for ever and it didn’t look good. These days people say to me, ‘Can you e-mail that to me?’ and I say ‘No, I can’t.’ [...]
He was both obsessive and ordered from the start, working at his typewriter from five to seven in the morning before going to write advertising blurbs for Chevrolet. In 1960 he took $11,500 from a profit share and turned to full-time writing.
The illustrious history of the yellow legal pad suggests that he does that long-hand writing on paper from yellow legal pads.
Leonard also attempts to ensure a similarly straightforward and plain speaking manner in his content:
Being a good author is a disappearing act. These are rules I’ve picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I’m writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what’s taking place in the story. [...] My most important rule is one that sums up the 10. If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Related: Scott Westerfeld isn't hugely impressed with Leonard's 10 rules of writing invisibly. And Michel Faber, whose Crimson Petal and the White's early drafts were whited-out with house painted.
More How we work.
I know you already have a John Cage entry, but I immediately thought of this gem from Indeterminacy:
"One day when I was studying with
Schoenberg, he pointed out
the eraser on his pencil and said,
“This end is more important
than the other.” After twenty years
I learned to write directly in ink"
Posted by: KT | May 15, 2006 at 07:58 AM
Oh, that's very good KT! It's going on the list.
Posted by: rodcorp | May 15, 2006 at 09:31 AM
This article suggests that he does that long-hand writing on paper from yellow legal pads:
The illustrious history of the yellow legal pad
http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/May-June-2005/scene_snider_mayjun05.msp
Posted by: rodcorp | May 21, 2006 at 12:08 AM