Think about it, what habits do you have in your daily life? Do you have any routine that you do before starting any task? The history of literature confirms that at least a few writers have had curious habits before facing their work and giving us famous works. Undoubtedly curiosities in the history of literature are curious.

We’ve collected a few of these curious habits of famous authors that we’ve found on the Wowessays – a website that writes essays for you free. This gives you a chance to imagine their job when writing the books that have been talked about so much over the years. 

Yellow and good luck

If you are a theater buff, you will know that the color yellow is the enemy of luck. But not for Gabriel García Márquez. In fact, he thought the opposite, that it attracted good omens and was completely necessary to be able to work in conditions.

Therefore, if we had a time machine and traveled to the time when the Colombian writer wrote 100 years of solitude, we would see how on his desk rested a yellow flower, something as necessary as the same ink with which he impregnated pages and pages.

And this was not the only mania of García Márquez, who also disliked plastic flowers and snails, which caused as much bad luck as the color yellow for theater actors.

Inspiration arrives standing up

When we think of the visit of the muses, we think of a desk next to a chair, a meadow to lie on… but what about standing up? This is how Virginia Woolf did it, who wrote many of her works in this position, writing on a high desk that allowed her to stand in this way. And, of course, the British writer was not the only literary star with this habit.

Hemingway also maintained this posture when writing his works. Could it be that inspiration comes better this way? You can always try it!

Work log

Continuing with Hemingway, we find an obsessive order and very manic regarding the creative process. As revealed by one of the writer’s employees during his stay in Cuba, the author always got up early and wrote on a strict schedule in which he was not allowed to write after one o’clock in the afternoon.

It was also rare for Hemingway to write more than a thousand words because when the writer had more or less calculated this amount, he would stop writing, count them to make sure, write down the total for the day, and put the lid on his typewriter. And we are dealing with a record-keeping obsession.

Although it has nothing to do with his books, Hemingway used to weigh himself and write down this information… on his bathroom walls!

Passionate about vintage

Some nostalgic writers say they prefer typewriters. Others even have a penchant for making notes using a specific fountain pen. George R.R. Martin, author of the A Song of Ice and Fire saga (adapted to audiovisuals as the Game of Thrones series), has a peculiar habit that combines the traditional with the modern.

Although Martin uses a computer to write, it is not just any terminal. The writer prefers an MS-DOS. The technology of the 80s on which he writes his texts using the WordStar 4.0 processor. For the writer, it is enough for him that the letters he types on the keyboard appear on the screen, even without the need for correction tools.

Habit makes the monk

Among the routines of writers, mention must be made of the essential clothing for Alexandre Dumas. It is said that the author always had to wear a red cassock and sandals before sitting down to create his books. An etiquette that affected not only his wardrobe but also the appearance of his manuscripts. Dumas had it clear: blue pages for fiction novels and yellow for poetry.

Apples in the bathtub

To speak of Agatha Christie is to recall the best literary legacy of the detective genre. And for the writer, it was very important to have a curious routine through which she reflected and shaped the plots of her books: eating apples in a bathtub. It is said that the Torquay writer had one installed to deposit these fruits next to her pencils and notebooks.

And if we talk about creating in the bathtub, the screenwriter and novelist Dalton Trumbo also deserves mention. In the memory of all Hollywood remains the image of the writer enjoying a bath next to his typewriter, a still life that he completed with his cigarettes, a cup of coffee, and tissues (as well as notebooks and pens).