I am stickler for reading writing books written by the writers themselves. I have read three of them, On writing by Stephen King, Writing Badly is Easy By Amitava Kumar and Novalist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami, along with the description of a writer’s day and other related stuff in the books and blogs by Tim Ferris.It’s fascinating to hear writers talk about the gruesome writing rituals they follow, the ways in which they developed their writing skills, and how they overcame numerous hardships to become masters of their craft. Perhaps what resonates with me most is the realization that these superhumans are also mortal, facing the same challenges and struggles that we as humans encounter.

For several months, I operated on pure guesswork, adopting what seemed to be a likely style and running with it, but when I read through the result I was far from impressed. “Good grief,” I moaned, “this is hopeless.” What I had written seemed to fulfill the formal requirements of a novel, yet it was rather boring and, as a whole, left me cold. “If that’s the way the author feels,” I thought dejectedly, “a reader will react even more negatively. Looks like I just don’t have what it takes.” Under normal circumstances, it would have ended there—I would have walked away. But the epiphany I had received on Jingu Stadium’s grassy slope was still clearly etched in my mind.

Murakami, Haruki. Novelist as a Vocation: An exploration of a writer’s life from the Sunday Times bestselling author (p. 28). Random House. Kindle Edition.

Every author or creative person faces the same challenges that we mortals face on a day-to-day basis. They have loads of other stuff to do (Murakami wrote until the early hours of the day during his initial writing days while simultaneously running a jazz bar). Some are battling drug and alcohol addiction, while others have recurrent financial strains (Stephen King faced immense financial issues as he battled his addiction problem and rising healthcare costs for his son). Maybe the single biggest indicator of a good writer is the struggle they have faced early in their career.

Another key aspect of writing good is using methods, tools and mental models to focus on the core of the writing.

Haruki Murakami tells about escaping the complexity of the Japanese language by first writing in English and then translating it in Japanese language. English is not his first language, and whatever Murakami writes will be in simple prose that is easy to understand. The different thoughts will be connected in a seemingly surprising way, creating depth and adding color to the story. After writing an English draft, he will then translate the text into Japanese.

On the discovery of this new method of writing Murakami writes:

Writing in my new style felt more like performing music than composing literature, a feeling that stays with me today. It was as if the words were coming through my body instead of from my head. Sustaining the rhythm, finding the coolest chords, trusting in the power of improvisation—it was tremendously exciting. When I sat down at the kitchen table each night and went back to work on my novel (if that’s what it was) using my new style, I felt like I was holding a new, cutting-edge tool in my hands. Boy oh boy, was it fun! And it filled the spiritual void that had loomed with the approach of my thirtieth birthday.

Murakami, Haruki. Novelist as a Vocation: An exploration of a writer’s life from the Sunday Times bestselling author (p. 32). Random House. Kindle Edition.

Famous writer and producer David Milch’s(NYPD Blue and Deadwood) writing method is very peculiar.

Milch would lie on the floor in the middle of a room in the show’s writing trailer, with other writers and producers sitting in chairs around him. In front of Milch would be a computer monitor displaying the script in progress. On the other side of the monitor, a typist sat at a desk (with his or her own monitor), typing the script as Milch dictated it. These writing sessions thus came to resemble a kind of séance, with Milch summoning the voices of the characters, inventing their lines on the spot—and reciting variations of these lines over and over (and over and over) until he arrived at the exact right piece of dialogue.

Credit: masoncurrey.substack.com

On the problem, that has led him to write this way, the author writes:

Why put his colleagues through this with him? For Milch, it is an adaptation born of necessity. He suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder, and being alone in a room—and especially operating a computer by himself—simply offers too many opportunities for getting derailed by repetitive behaviors. “I’ve come to recognize that the more isolated I am, the more disposed I am to obsessive processes,” Milch has said. “I find that by writing out in the open, I am less likely to, for example, begin to write the same sentence a thousand times, or hang upside-down like a bat in the corner of the room, you know, or smoke crack.”

Credit: masoncurrey.substack.com

These peculiarities come from the unique problem that these unique individuals face. They all create a system that works for them and works for them well. They could have stopped in the face of their problems, but they have continued and created systems and solutions for the problems that is unique to them.

Perhaps we should all be attuned to ourselves, listen closely and build solutions that are for samples of one.