Ask any modern day author who writes full time and you will get answers that mirror an interview of Wilkie Collins.
William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. His best-known works are The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), and The Moonstone (1868), considered the first modern English detective novel.
William Wilkie Collins on Writing
COLLINS’S THEORY OF FICTION
“The secret of that is to get out of the beaten track of ideas,” he replied. “The popular impression, I believe, for ages has been that fat people are necessarily good-humored. Now, I never observed that fat people were any more good-humored or virtuous than thin people, and that is the reason why I made Count Fosco a fat man. A fat villain was an absolute novelty in fiction, though not so, I maintain, in fact.”
“You are so prolific a writer that it is evident you must work very hard.”
“I write all day long; yes, absolutely. I work like any other laborer. Immediately after breakfast I seat myself at my desk, work without intermission until luncheon time, and then again straight on till dinner.”
“Do you write at night?”
“I used to, but I was obliged to give that up. Really, there were too many ghosts about.”
“Those you had summoned for use in your fiction?”
“Yes—accompanied by their friends. They clustered together just beyond the smoke from my pipe and stared at me with glassy eyes. I was forced to jump up, seize my hat and go to the club.”
“Don’t you require more exercise than you get seated all day at your desk?”
“I can’t spare time for any more. I walk to the club every evening and back, and play a game of whist with one or other of my literary friends.”
“Will you not give me some more hints about writing, please?”
“Pay great attention to style. That is a point upon which I am most solicitous. Every line of my books is carefully worked over, sometimes rewritten two or three times in order that it may be perfect in the matter of style.”
This an excerpt of an interview from my e-copy of collected works also at 1889 The World written by Olive Logan (1839-1909) was an American actress with Augustin Daly’s Broadway theatre. She also wrote plays and later novels and in 1868 gave up the stage for a full time writing career which included journalism.
Don’t touch anything sharp.