"It was about 6 years ago and I had just quit a twelve year job as a postal clerk and was trying to be a writer. I was terrified and drank more than ever. I was attempting my first novel. I drank a pint of whiskey and two six packs of beer each night while writing. I smoked cheap cigars and typed and drank and listened to classical music on the radio until dawn. I set a goal of ten pages a night but I never knew until the next day how many pages I had written. I’d get up in the morning, vomit, then walk to the front room and look on the couch to see how many pages were there. I always exceeded my ten. Sometimes there were 17, 18, 23, 25 pages. Of course, the work of each night had to be cleaned up or thrown away. It took me twenty-one nights to write my first novel."
--Charles Bukowski, Women
4 comments:
ONLY twenty-one nights to finish his novel? What a hack.
wv: ansedab
Er ... I meant, what a slacker.
I didn't think I was drinking enough. At least I know better now.
Cheap Cigars and Vomit: My Life in Letters by Charles Bukowski. Would write it, but the merest contemplation of Buk's books makes my liver ache!
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