(Re)writing like Hemingway

His prose was legendary. Few writers could go toe-to-toe with a litterateur like Hemingway: 

 “But man is not made for defeat… A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

“There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any tomorrow. How old must you be before you know that?”

“ -How did you go bankrupt? -Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

“All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.”

“As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.”

“Any man's life, told truly, is a novel…”

“Cowards die a thousand deaths, but the brave only die once.”

However, even Hemingway found writing to be rather arduous: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” 

Today, we are going to revisit some of his advice or writing, rewriting and getting started. The excerpts below come from the book "Ernest Hemingway on Writing”.

When Hemingway got stuck, he would repeat these dicta to himself: “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say.”

In order to keep the creative juice flowing, Hemingway advised that you need to "write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again. You have started at six in the morning, say, and may go on until noon or be through before that. When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have made love to someone you love. Nothing can hurt you, nothing can happen, nothing means anything until the next day when you do it again. It is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through.” 

When it came to selecting words, the author should bid…farewell to adjectives, rather than arms: '[Ezra was]… the man who had taught me to distrust adjectives as I would later learn to distrust certain people in certain situations…'

When asked how much rewriting he did, his reply was:  "It depends. I rewrote the ending to Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied.” When asked what took him so long, he laconically retorted: "Getting the words right”. 

If even a literary giant like Hemingway had trouble writing, mere mortals should not be surprised when hitting a roadblock. All we need to remember is his last piece of advice: “Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”

Best of luck with your writing!