My father used to write in bed. This picture of Mark Twain was pinned above his desk. Actually, he didn't have a desk. He lived on a sailboat, and he used the little fold-out galley table for writing. A length of twine festooned with clothespins was strung from one end of the cabin to the other, and here he fastened his typed pages and notes. The papers rustled and flapped in the breeze from the open portholes. The cabin was always cluttered with books, writing pads, tools and boat parts, because the boat, being a boat, was always in need of maintenance. If he wasn't sitting around in his pajamas working on his perpetually unfinished novel, he was sitting around in his pajamas making a to-do list of repairs for the perpetually disintegrating boat. It seems a miracle now, but my father managed to stay afloat wearing only pajamas.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Writing in bed and other rules of buoyancy
My father used to write in bed. This picture of Mark Twain was pinned above his desk. Actually, he didn't have a desk. He lived on a sailboat, and he used the little fold-out galley table for writing. A length of twine festooned with clothespins was strung from one end of the cabin to the other, and here he fastened his typed pages and notes. The papers rustled and flapped in the breeze from the open portholes. The cabin was always cluttered with books, writing pads, tools and boat parts, because the boat, being a boat, was always in need of maintenance. If he wasn't sitting around in his pajamas working on his perpetually unfinished novel, he was sitting around in his pajamas making a to-do list of repairs for the perpetually disintegrating boat. It seems a miracle now, but my father managed to stay afloat wearing only pajamas.
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3 comments:
My father sat at his desk on a squeaky wooden chair in his leather bomber jacket, the smell of typewriter oil and erasers around him like a cloud, a wastebasket of crumpled manuscript pages. The closest we ever came to seeing his novel in print.
As a lifelong closeted bedwriter (not wetter), I love, love, love this post. My dreams and creativity live in my bed. Also my back heating pad and comfortable pillows.
Squirrel, I'd love to see a photograph of your magical bed-desk-nest. We should do a series! We'll call it, "Writers In Bed, and Other Compromising Positions."
Such an arresting image, CG. I can smell the dusty, pungent aroma of typewriter oil and hear that squeaky chair.
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