Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-12-20
WRITING A NOVEL,
Tie Work of a Noted Author of
Fiction, and His Division
Of Labor.
autobiography of Anthony Trollope.]

Autobiography of Anthony Trollope.1
The work | did during the twelve years,
from 1859 to 1871, was certainly very great.
feel confident in amount no other writer
contributed SO much during that time to
English literature. Over and above my
novels, | wrote political articles, critical,
social and sporting articles. for periodicals,
without number. I did the work of sur
| veyor OF the general postoffice, and SO did it
as to give the authorities of the department
no slightest pretext for fault finding
hunted always at least twice a week. was
frequent in the whist-rooln at the Garrick.
lived much in society in London and was
made happy by the presence Of my friends at
Waltham Cross In addition to this we always
spent six weeks, at least, out of England.
Few men, think, ever lived fuller life and
l attribute the power of doing this altogether
to the virtue of early hours.
1t was my practice to be at my table every
morning at5:30, and it was also my practice
| to allow myself no mercy. An old groom,
whose business it was to cali me, and to
whom L paid e5 a year extra for the duty,
allowed himself no mercy. During all those
years at Waitham Cross he was never once
late with the coffee which it was his duty to
bring me. do not know that I ought not to
| feel tEat owe more to him than to any one
| else for the success [ have had. By begin
ming at that hour I could complete my liter
airy work before [ dressed for breakfast All
! those, l think, who have lived as literary
men-working daily at literary work-will
agree with me that three hours a day will
produce as much as a man ought to write.
! But then he should SO have trained himself
| that he should be able to work continuously
| during those three hours; so have tutored his
mind that it shall not be necessary for him to
sit nlbbling his pen, and gazing at the wall
before him, till he shall have found the words
| with which ne wants to express his ideas It
/; had at this time become my custom-and it
/ still IS my custom, though Of late have be-
come little lenient to myself-to write with
my watch before me, and to require from
| myself 250 words every quarter of an hour.
have found that the $50 words have been
Forthcoming as regularly as my watch went.
! But my three hours were not devoted en-
| tirely to writing. I always began my task
| by reading the work of the day before, an
operation which would take me half an hour
and which consisted chiefly in weighing with
| my ear the sound of the words and phrases.
| would strongly recommend this practice to
| all tyros in writing. That their work should
| be read after it has been written is a matter
!! of course; that it should be read twice, al
| least, before it goes to the printers, take to
be matter of course. But by reading what
! he has last written, before he recommends
! his task, the writer will catch the tone and
| spirit of what he is then saying, and will
| avoid the fault of seeming to be unlike him
! self The division of time allowed me tc
produce over ten pages of an ordinary novel
volume day, and, if kept up through ter
| months, would have given as its results three
novels of three volumes each in a year-the
precise amount which so greatly acerbated
the publisher in Paternoster row, and which
must, at any rate, be felt to be quite as
| much as the novel readers of the world can
want from the hands of one man.