Erskine Caldwell

I used to have all kinds of schedules. Years ago, in the state of Maine, I chose to write my book on even days and work outside on odd days. When winter came, I shoveled snow and slept a little during the day, then stayed up all night to write. Another early method I used was to take a trip to write a short story. I’d ride a bus, from Boston to Cleveland maybe, and get off at night once in a while to write. I’d do a story that way in about a week’s time. Then, for a while, I took the night boats between Boston and New York. The Fall River Line, the New Bedford Line, the Cape Cod Line, all going to New York at night. The rhythm of the water might have helped my sentence structure a little; at least I thought it did. Those were all early methods, or schedules, of writing. Everything since then has been a little bit different.

Whoever is not the writer in the family always gets the short end of the stick. That’s because a writer has to be somewhat selfish. For example, I’m a retiring person in social life or in any other kind of life. I suppose you’d call me almost a recluse. I don’t take days off. I work on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. Well, a woman can resent that, and eventually something is going to give somewhere along the way. Of course, once in a while there is a very even-spirited person who can take all this, and that’s why some writers do stay married. But as a rule, no, they don’t.

I have a red rug in my room. Wherever I’ve lived in life, I’ve carried my red rug with me. I keep it in excellent shape. I have it vacuumed; I have it dry-cleaned. We are sitting on it now, in fact. Why is it here? We have a very good carpet underneath. But I’ve got a reason for wanting it here. It’s part of my life. Back in the early days I had to live on cold and splintery floors. There was a hardwood floor in Maine that was especially cold because the room I worked in was unheated. Now, an unheated room in a New England winter is sort of a difficult dungeon. Then, in South Carolina, I was confined to write for a while in a rented room with a linoleum floor. The linoleum was cracked and it bristled with splinters. Anytime I didn’t have my shoes on, I’d get a splinter in my foot. Well, as soon as I could afford to get a good rug, I bought my red one. And I decided then that I’d carry my red rug with me wherever I went.

-Erskine Caldwell, Paris Review