I do my writing uh...
most of it in the morning
usually rewriting in the evening in my study
surrounded by uh...
this book started a uh
golden retriever and a jack russell and now it's
a labradoodle and a jack russell
and a very brave cat
uh...
there are there is no technology in the room
apart from the lights
uh... i write uh...
longhand with a roller ball
fine point
black ink
on the back
of xerox paper
previously used previously the front side is used and you just bill you just
keep it print outs from various things you can just have a
huge stash of that stuff
um...
and um... eventually what i write is rewritten and then
put on a disk
and you can play with it there who rewrites it
well i rewrite it and then i give it to my assistant
his name is linda fernandez and linda
uh...
types it into
the onto the internet and um...
uh...
but the basic
creativity for ellis
if there is such a thing
occurs
in the rhythm
between my brain motions and the movement of my hand and my wrist
there is some connection there I believe and and you uh
sometimes if you're a really fast typer you can type to fast you can type faster than you
can think and
that's not good it produces yeah
yeah
pauses anyway
I'm obviously very old-fashioned although some people who accuse me of writing with a
quill pen I don't do that its it works for me maybe someday i'll
become
technologically literate but i'm trying to keep that as far into the future as
possible given the results to date i i would
push it far for back uh
people have tried to persuade you to change oh yeah
and
you have
told them no
and i think uh... it's fair to say that
for every book they produce you
produce three four five
uh but why do they want you to change what is their alleged reason for wanting
you to change besides
technological conformity I guess
yeah i think that's the main thing and it's like
it's a way of trying to make me do something that i don't want to do
uh... out of some
petulant academic reason i don't understand uh...
maybe it's well well-intentioned in many instances look joe this will
make it so much easier for you
uh and it's because i'm weird
and singular in this regard and uh...
uh... and they
they would like everybody to be alike
uh... you know people have this
thought that uh... what's newer is always better
uh…I think not yeah
well again
i don't wanna sound like I'm coming out against technology or the automobile or anything
like that
yeah it's just you asked me how I would work and that's how it is it's very old-fashioned
but so far it's been successful
and another thing that i think is is
hugely important uh
you read all the stuff yourself
yeah i don't have any research assistants
i have an assistant who takes care of the
you know translating this into it
into print uh... and
sometimes i have students that help me get books
uh... but uh i've never been able to manage
research assistants
primarily because if i already know what to tell them to look for
then I don't need 'em
and uh... you know like and
and i also think my eyes have to see it
because what I will see is not the same thing that somebody else will see
in the way of an anecdote a particular quotation
uh...
something that would fly by most research assistants uh...
so it takes a little bit longer in the research phase for me
though the research phase is not totally separate from the writing phase
uh i found that i have to start writing before I'm really ready
uh... in times because
then i'll know where i'm gonna head
in the next piece of research
um...
so that it's a back-and-forth kind of thing though you have to get a certain
foundation of research done so you pretty much know what the the story is
before you can really start writing
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