Write First and Always, Miller Says, Painting, Music, Friends, Cinema...All These Come Afterwards

Checklist — Writers on Writing 6 (Ezra Pound)

The last in the six-part series, Checklist — Writers on Writing features six writers on the craft of writing and their writing processes: From following a daily creative routine, to the necessity of not being ‘a draught-horse’, they share the secrets of writing as well as how you can write with style and fine-tune your writing skills. Today, we have Henry Miller (1891–1980), the American novelist, who according to Encyclopaedia Britannica:

...is also notable for a free and easy American style and a gift for comedy that springs from his willingness to admit to feelings others conceal and an almost eager acceptance of the bad along with the good. Because of their sexual frankness, his major works were banned in Britain and the United States until the 1960s, but they were widely known earlier from copies smuggled in from France.

Dig the series

• Steinbeck Used Six Things Related to Writing That Kill Mediocrity
• What It Takes to Succeed in Writing According to Ogilvy
• Be Crazy Dumbsaint of the Mind to Write Like a Pro
• What Vonnegut Says About Saying What You Mean to Say
• Pound Says You Will Find Six Kinds of Writers When You Search for ‘Pure Elements’ in Literature 

Just after the publication of his masterpiece, Tropic of Cancer in 1934, Miller came up with his 11 commandments of writing that was originally published in Henry Miller on Writing. Many people, even from beyond the world of writing, have utilised his rigorous daily program (sic) for productivity, inspiration and mental health.

Here’s Miller’s 11 Commandments of Writing and His Daily Creative Routine:

Books by Henry Miller:

• Tropic of Cancer (1934)
• Black Spring (1936)
• Tropic of Capricorn (1939)
• Sexus (1949)
• Plexus (1952)
• Nexus (1960)
• Scenario (1937)
• The World of Sex (1957)
• Opus Pistorum (1983)
• Crazy Cock (1991)
• Moloch (1993)
• Quiet Days in Clichy / The World of Sex (2004)
• The Cosmological Eye (1939)
• The Colossus of Maroussi (1941)
• Nights of Love and Laughter (1955)
• Defence of the Freedom to Read (1959)
• The Intimate Henry Miller (1959)
• The Best of Henry Miller (1960)
• Selected Prose (poems) (1965)
• The Henry Miller Reader (1969)
• Nightmare Notebook (1975)
• The Theatre and Other Pieces (1979)
• Just Wild About Harry (play, 1964)

 Checklist — Writers on Writing Series:   John Steinbeck - Six tips on writing   David Ogilvy - 10 tips on writing   Ezra Pound - List of the six types of writers and two rules for forming an opinion   Jack Kerouac - List of 30 beliefs and techniques for prose and life   Henry Miller - 11 commandments of writing and daily creative routine   Kurt Vonnegut - How to Write with Style: 8 Keys to the Power of the Written Word