Thackeray (?) anecdote about writing discipline

[Converse120]

Can anyone confirm, deny, or even provide a source for the following anecdote. I ask here because I've a feeling it may have been here that I read it. I think the protaganist may have been Thackeray, but I could be wrong.

The story goes that Thackeray would always write for two (or whatever) hours each morning. One day, only part of the way through his alloted two hours, he finished a novel. As his time wasn't up, he got out a fresh sheet of paper and started the next one.

If it's not true, it should be.

Thanks,
-- Mike

[mr mistook]

At the rate of two hours a day, I'd imagine that next blank sheet ought to be dedicated to writing out his Will! :)

[Niggle by Leaf]

That doesn't sound much like Thackeray to me - who reportedly once spent a whole evening writing and only managed to produce 12 lines. (I can sympathise!) Maybe you are thinking of Anthony Trollope - who did have an extremely disciplined writing routine that sounds much like what you describe. I can definitely see Trollope moving straight from one novel to another like that.

[Jamesaritchie]

The quote is about Trollope, not Thackeray, and while it's been widely circulated (I believe I first saw it in Writer's Digest), it apparently isn't quite true.

A quote from The American Scholar, Fall92, Vol. 61 Issue 4, p487, 8p

"Trollope tells of finishing his novel Doctor Thorne one day and beginning another, The Bertrams, the next. With a talent I have developed of improving upon already extraordinary stories, I artfully misremembered and retold this story so that Trollope had finished a novel in the middle of a morning's work and, rather than let the rest of his morning working session go to waste, took out a fresh piece of paper and began another novel that same morning."

[Euan Harvey]

Even if it's not true, it's a great anecdote. And thinking about it, there's not all that much difference between starting the next novel *immediately* after finishing the previous, and starting the next *one day* after finishing the previous.

It's a work ethic to be admired and emulated either way.

[Converse120]

James: thanks very much for the correction and the source!

Euan: I like to think of it as an example of how not to write. It's taking rigid discipline and structure to a ludicrous extreme. However, it's a problem I wouldn't mind having in place of procrastination and idleness! It's also a funny story.

[Jamesaritchie]

I'm pretty doggoned disciplined as a writer, but I need a break now and then. I do work on more than one novel at a time, sometimes up to four at once, I work five hours a day, six days per week, and if I finsih a project two hours into my daily schedule I immdeiately switch to anothe rproject or start a new one.

But I've got to have a break from this rigid discipline a couple of times a year, else the well runs dry.

I never work on Sinday, I always take two weeks off in the spring, and I always take October off, so while I am very discipline dabout writing, I do need some time off now and then.

[Euan Harvey]

It's taking rigid discipline and structure to a ludicrous extreme.
But he did write a *lot* of books :)
However, it's a problem I wouldn't mind having in place of procrastination and idleness!
Yup. It's one of those stories that makes me think 'what the hell am I doing with my life?' and then run to the computer and start working again. :b