This is an interesting concept. Have you ever thought about taking one of your very favorite books and retyping it out? That’s right, the entire thing. Nope? Well, I hadn’t either until I read about today’s phrase.
Here is a small excerpt from the book:
“When Donald Ray Pollock turned forty-five, he decided he wanted to do something different with his life; he was going to learn how to write. He began by retyping stories by writers he liked —John Cheever, Richard Yates, and Ernest Hemingway —and then he’d carry the stories around with him, reading and rereading them. “I’m not a real close reader,” he said, “and typing those stories out gave me the chance to see this is how you make a transition, this is how you do dialogue.””
Here’s another part where it talked about this “teacher in the 1950s who used to make her students (some of whom became famous) type out whole published novels by their favorite writers. One of the reasons she had them do this was to make them realize how long it takes just to type a whole book, let alone dream it up and write many drafts.”
Have you honestly ever thought about doing this? If you’re like me that would be a great big no. This has definitely got the wheels in my head rolling full steam ahead. I might do this someday just to see what it is like as well as how much it would actually help me. If it did I might do it with a few of them. At least it would be a whole lot easier to type from the books with my Kindle as I wouldn’t have to prop the pages open as they are already nice and flat on the screen. 🙂
Benjamin Franklin and many of the founders and other famous types are known to have kept a Commonplace Book…copying not the whole, but just part of what they read each day. Perhaps, or perhaps not without personal comments. Just something they picked out as inspirational, beautiful, or informative. 🙂
I think many of us do small tidbits today like quoting someone else. We remember how it touches us and we love to share it in return.