Lucky Writer's Socks?
Baseball players are known to have strange pre-game rituals. Rob Murphy wore women’s underwear under his jock strap while pitching (honestly, can you think of anything less comfortable than a jock-strap-and-thong wedgie?), while Kevin Millar used to sprinkle his bats with doe pee when he was with the Florida Marlins. But as the phrase, “I’m going to write, so I’m taking the candle” left my mouth, I started wondering about the odd rituals of writers.
Walter Benjamin advocated, “a pedantic adherence to certain papers, pens, inks…” and Bruce Chatwin would do just that – buying large collections of Moleskin notebooks and writing two addresses in the cover of each in case they were lost.
Writing and snacking tend to go hand in hand (or perhaps hand in mouth?*), and while many writers say that a coffee is an absolute necessity, N. Gemini Sasson requires one of two particular coffee mugs from a castle gift shop in England, which only she can drink from, and only when she’s writing.
Like Manny Ramirez, Sarah Darer Littman uses perfume in her rituals. While Manny would spritz himself with cologne before going out onto the field, eventually prompting the rest of the Red Sox to ask for “good luck sprays” of their own**, Sarah Darer Littman uses one perfume per book she works on, associating each book with a scent.
Similarly, J. R. Murdock realized that it wasn’t the act of cutting and eating oranges that made him productive, but the scent of the orange itself. Eventually, Murdock decided to replace the orange scent with the act of making an infinity sign with his fingers before getting to work.
Granted, none of these habits are as odd as sprinkling one’s computer with animal piss, or changing (or not changing) one’s socks depending on the latest book review. But perhaps there’s some odd writing habits I missed — what odd writing ritual do you have?
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* Hand in mouth sounds like a disease, doesn’t it? Like something you can get from the subway on your way home. (Ah-ha! Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease — better stock up on hand sanitizer, or stop touching the blisters of infected persons.)
** If you are a Yankee fan, please add your own “spray” joke here. There are just too many for me to choose just one.
*** Thanks to the book JINXED: BASEBALL SUPERSTITIONS FROM AROUND THE MAJOR LEAGUES, edited by Ken Leiker, for the baseball superstitions.
