Born Januarry 22, 1906, Robert E. Howard is the second of three birthdays that fall every other day here in late Janaury. The first is A. Merritt, whom I wrote about two days ago.

I’ve been writing about Howard and doing birthday posts for him for years, so I’m not sure what else I could say. I’d better think of something, though, because I have a REHUPA article due by the end of the month, and it needs to be four pages.

I’ve got time. (Famous Last Words.)

So, today I want to talk about Howard’s work ethic as a writer. Writing practices have been on my mind lately, so I thought I would examine a few of Howard’s.

First, Howard was a voracious reader. This should be a “Well, Duh!” statement. Howard read poetry, history, and a number of pulps in various genres, such as weird fantasy and horror, adventure and historical fiction, western, and boxing. The result of this was that he  was able to write in a number of different genres. And while he didn’t write much nonfiction (if you don’t count  his correspondence, which wasn’t written for publication), the nonfiction he read informed his fiction. And I’m not just talking about his historical adventure stories, either. Anyone who has taken even a cursory glance at his Hyborian Age can see how Bob melded different historical times and places into a detailed imaginary world.

Second, Howard wasn’t afraid to try new  things. He often combined genres or blended a genre he wanted to try with another genre he was familiar and  comfortable with. Case in point, “The God in the Bowl”, which is a police procedural. It just happens to be set in the Hyborian Age and features a young thief named Conan. The fact that Howard never successfully developed any characters or series set in what for him was modern times just means that he didn’t feel comfortable with that particular type of story.

Third, Howard could make a setting come alive, whether it was the hills of Afghanistan, the plains of Texas, or a lost temple in a Hypborian jungle. Read the opening of “The Tower of the Elephant” for one of the best examples of this.

Third, Howard was always willing to try new markets. As the pulp landscape changed, so did his output. He was moving away from fantasy and horror in the last few years of his life. Perhaps it was because Farnsworth Wright was slow in paying him for stories accepted by Weird Tales. Perhaps it was because his interests simply changed as he got older. He did write that tales of the Texas frontier were becoming more of interest to him not long before he died. I’m sure someone *cough, cough* John Bullard *cough, cough*could find the exact quote. I looked for it but didn’t find it.

Howard would read his stories out loud as he read them. I’ve heard on hot nights when folks slept with the windows open, as everyone did in the days before  air conditioning, he would annoy the Butlers next door since he often worked late into the night. I’m not saying disturbing people when they are trying to sleep is a good thing. But the reading out loud, that’s a technique I’ve heard a lot of writers advocate. It lets you hear the rhythm and the cadence of your words. Howard was an accomplished poet, and much of his prose, especially the best, has a poetic quality about it.

So there are four examples of Howard’s work ethic when it came to writing. He wrote some of the best prose of the Twentieth Century. And while he also wrote a lot of stuff that honestly was pretty bad, his best can stand up to anything written by Faulkner, Hemingway, or Bradbury.