Writer Ranbir Sidhu just finished a novel while locked in an architect-designed habitat for 30 days, 22 Å“ hours each day. The publicity stunt by Queens artist collective Flux Factory resembles another mentally focusing experience known as ‘poverty.’

The novelists lived in the gallery, in individual habitats built for them by architects and designers who, like the writers, entered a competition. Evenings, they ate together, meals served by local chefs. In addition, they could leave their pads for 90 minutes a day to shower, do laundry or walk on the building’s roof… There were nice writerly touches, like the two empty Scotch whiskey bottles perched on a shelf and a stack of books – including Strunk and White as well as Kafka – lined up near Mr. Bailie’s computer… “I liked the boundaries here… I knew what was expected of me. I was supposed to stay in my room a month and write a book.” [NYT]

Here’s an excerpt from the rough draft of the novel he wrote while on the hamster wheel:

“Here, check this out.” Cyrus clicked on a couple of pull down menus. “This sorts into gender. It compares violence against male body parts to violence against female body parts and plots them both against hits. Do you see?… It’s the violence against women that’s really getting us our customers…

“One thing we found that’s strange is this. Violence against dicks. Our readers don’t like that. You cut off balls, interest falls through the floor. You cut off the dick, and man, you lose the whole fucking stadium. There is silence out there.

“Our characters get to keep their dicks,” Cyrus said. “Unless they’re black or brown.”

Here’s Anna on National Novel Writing Month. For speed writing, few compare to the prolific Robert Louis Stevenson, who supposedly wrote Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in under a week while binging on cocaine. (I assume he believed in method writing.)