430 Jacques Derrida 1984–2004
veritable writing.^40 For a long time, when it came to all the texts
important to him, Derrida started writing with a pen, starting
over again several times. Only when the text was launched, the
tone and the overall point of view sketched out, did he turn to his
typewriter.
All those who heard him typing, on his little Olivetti with its inter-
national keyboard, then on his electric typewriter, were struck by his
speed. J. Hillis Miller says:
One day, at Yale, I called by with Harold Bloom to take him
to lunch. But in the corridor, the clatter of his typewriter was
so quick that we didn’t dare knock on his door. His creativity
seemed linked to the rhythm of typewriting, like that of many
American writers. He could really think with his fi ngers, at the
same time as he was writing.^41But while he could type very quickly, Derrida worked only in short
sequences. After fi fteen or twenty minutes, he would get up and
start walking around; or he would become absorbed in a book:
‘The more something interests me or demands my attention, the
more quickly I interrupt my work.’^42 His relation with his body was
crucial and the positions in which he worked were in his view far
from trivial matters.
I sometimes write lying down, taking notes when I wake up,
after a dream. [.. .] When I write sitting down, I’m managing
thoughts, ideas, movements of thought that always come to me
when I’m standing up, doing something else, walking, driving,
running. When I used to go running (I’ve stopped now), that
was then the most organizing things, ideas, would come to me.
I’ve sometimes gone running with a piece of paper in my pocket
to make notes. Then, when I sat down in front of my table [.. .],
I was managing, making use of furtive, cursive things, some-
times fl ashes of inspiration, that always came to me when I was
running. I very quickly became aware of this: it was when I was
on my feet that good things could come to me.^43The best account of his creative process is probably to be
found in an encounter with Patrick Mauriès, for a long article in
Libération:
When I start to write a text, it’s always what I’d call the tone
that gives me the most trouble. I generally fi nd the tones that
occur to me insupportable. The diffi culty of writing is always
a matter of the pose – the question ‘where am I going to place
myself?’ This isn’t something that you can decide all by yourself: