At a loss for fresh ideas for your romance novel? Fretting over the next chapter of your true crime manuscript? Puzzled as to how to end your magazine article? Try writing in bed.
Lots of successful writers have composed while horizontal. Some did so for comfort, others to focus their thoughts, still others to fire up their creativity. Let’s look at a few examples.
Sir Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill, the author of 50 books, woke every morning at 7:30. After breakfast, which he ate in bed, he spent several hours there dictating chapters of his books and other correspondences to his secretaries.
Think about it. If Winston Churchill—the two-time Prime Minister and Nobel Prize-winning author—found lying down effective, isn’t that method good enough for you?
Edith Wharton
The novelist and Pulitzer Prize-winning Edith Wharton, author of The Age of Innocence, Ethan Frome, and 36 other books, took lying down to an extreme. Wharton wrote her novels longhand while in bed, then tossed the pages of her draft on the floor for her secretary to fetch and type up. Was Wharton lazy? Not at all. She simply preferred to compose in her night clothes, rather than squeeze into the tight corset that was part of women’s undergarments back then. The corset would be worn later in the day.
Truman Capote
Consider the habits of Truman Capote, who used the method to encourage originality and concentration. “I am a completely horizontal author,” he once told an interviewer. “I can’t think unless I’m lying down, either in bed or on a couch and with a cigarette and coffee handy.” It’s in that position that Capote composed, in pencil, the first draft and revision of his true crime book In Cold Blood, along with his plays, short stories, and articles.
Consider the Time
Writing bolstered by pillows may have further benefits if performed in the early hours of the day. Says Robert McCrum, in “The Advantages of Writing in Bed” (The Guardian), there is a psychological benefit, especially if done in the morning. “Part of you is still in the shadowy cave of dream world; part is adjusting to the sharp brightness of reality. The mixture is fruitful and often suggestive.”
So, next time your article ending is elusive, or your main character suffers from a loss of words, follow the lead of the influential Churchill, Wharton, and Capote: Go to bed.
And, as the author of this article, who agonized over a fitting conclusion, can attest—it works!