Henry David Thoreau said:
Whatever sentence will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was thought twice.
You don’t start to write by sitting down in front of blank sheet of paper or an empty computer screen. You start by thinking about something.
If you sit down at the computer without having done any thinking, you might be in trouble. Thinking can include reading, reporting, observation and research. If I haven’t done any of that, I stay away from the blank page, the empty screen.
Amor Towles says he begins a “design book” about four years before he begins a novel. He used a notebook to collect information on the Soviet Union in the 1920s and ’30s for A Gentleman in Moscow. Towles consulted old guidebooks and encyclopedias. He was able to picture the details — how his characters would move around in the setting — before he started typing.
In my mind, Towles was writing during the four years of keeping that design book. I’d say he was writing long before he started on the first draft. To me, that’s not a separate process. It’s an essential part of writing.
• Sources: The Quotable Thoreau, edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer; Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011, p. 195.
John Williams, “Book Tour: At Home with Amor Towles”; The Washington Post, May 18, 2024. It’s here: https://wapo.st/3LAbcRk
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