“Writers come in all ages, religions, creeds, sexes, intermediate sexes, sizes, and temperaments. Moreover, their modes of living and writing styles vary. I know several who can only write from midnight to dawn after everyone else is asleep. There are morning writers and afternoon writers. Also, some write with stereo sets blasting, while others demand deep silence. Some write in short­ hand, some in longhand, some use a typewriter, and some can only dictate to secretaries.

“There are the pacers, the starers, the sitters, the nibblers, the eaters, the abstainers, the drinkers, and dozens of others. Some can only function in sparsely furnished offices, while others must be surrounded by sybaritic splendor. Some have offices in their homes; others don’t feel at home in their homes.

“Most of them combine incompatible giant-sized egos with nerve-racking insecurity com­plexes. Ten learned critics could tell a novelist that he has created a masterpiece, but then if his gardener were to say, “I don’t like the book too much,” the writer’s week would be ruined.

 “Writing is an art and not a science, and as is true in all of the arts, each of us has his own tastes. Perhaps you recall the story of the man who brought a lady friend to a party, and this lady was difficult to describe. Her nose was off-center, her mouth was slit vertically down her face instead of horizontally, one eye was two inches lower than the other, and both of her ears were on the same side of her head. The man introduced this weird woman to a friend whose countenance betrayed his shocked appearance at her bizarre face. Her escort indignantly said to this man, ‘What’s the matter-you don’t like Picasso?’

“In the same vein, what I think is funny you may regard as tragic. It’s a matter of taste.

“Some writer once remarked ‘The deadliest enemy of the writer is that first empty page staring him in the face.’ Dorothy Parker is reputed to have said, ‘I hate writing. I love having written.’

When any network or advertising executive criticized one of Fred Allen’s scripts, he’d say, ‘Where were you when the pages were empty?’

“Writers don’t confine their work exclusively to offices, either at studios or in their homes. A writer’s brain is always working. I know of writers who have gotten excellent ideas while playing golf, fishing, walking, watching movies, or even sleeping. I know that my wife Hilda still hasn’t forgiven me because once, at a most intimate moment, I broke into wild laughter at a script idea that popped into my head.

“Not only that, but wives never fully understand their writing husbands’ creative habits (and vice versa). A woman (man) can be married to a writer for fifty years and still not understand that when she (he) walks into his office and sees him (her) staring out of a window, he (she) is actually working.”