In 1955, James Thurber, whose peerless wit made him one of the most important American writers of the 20th century, recounted the following exchange:
“I never quite know when I’m not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, ‘Dammit, Thurber, stop writing.’ She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph.”
Thurber, whose prolific career included “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” and “The Battle of the Sexes” (both adapted into films), captured the occupational hazards inherent in the writer’s mind. Writing is not some industrialized, mechanized process; there is no time card.
Read more at the Los Angeles Times.