Sorkin, Writer of Short-Lived Mathew Perry, Slop Suffers for Art
This past weekend, Aaron Sorkin, writer of the West Wing and some short-lived Mathew Perry slop, broke his nose while writing. Apparently, he was reciting dialogue into a mirror and headbutted the glass.
I had a teacher, Wayne Ude, that disputed the notion that a writer must suffer to be any good. He figured that you should just put your hand on a table, raise a heavy book over it, and let the book drop. There, you’ve suffered for your craft and can move on with your writing. Breaking your nose, I suppose, is a variation on that theme.
Everyone knows about the writers that battled depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, mental illness, poverty, and car accidents, but were you aware of these suffering writers?
- Harry Clement Stubbs stubbed his toe on a sidewalk crack.
- Richard Bach threw out his back, lifting a box full of Jonathon Livingston Seagull.
- R.L. Stine had a bad case of the shivers, getting goose bumps, when furnace pilot light went out for a full day.
- T.D. Hamm suffered a mild case of indigestion after eating some spoiled meat.
- Robert Bly got hit in the face with a pie.
- After free-writing for a few hours one rainy Sunday afternoon, Elizabeth Hand developed writer’s cramp and a writer’s bump.
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