[Ads-l] Quote About Asimov

[MULLINS, WILLIAM D (Bill) CIV USARMY RDECOM AMRDEC (US)]

I posted the following on another list:
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Fred Shapiro is an email friend and is the author/editor of the Yale Book of Quotes. 
http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300107982/yale-book-quotations 

He is researching a quote about Isaac Asimov: "He had writer's block once. It was the worst ten minutes of his life." 

He's found it in print from 2005, but wonders if it can be found earlier than that, or in an earlier form, or in reference to another writer. 

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2017-January/145808.html 

Here is a variant in reference to Robert Silverberg in 1982: 
http://lists.project-wombat.org/pipermail/project-wombat-project-wombat.org/2014-April/011016.html 

And something similar from andy offutt from _Again, Dangerous Visions_ (1972) 
http://lists.project-wombat.org/pipermail/project-wombat-project-wombat.org/2014-April/011022.html  

So, the question is: 
Can anyone antedate IN PRINT the Asimov variant before 2005, the Silverberg variant before 1982, or any variant prior to 1972?

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And got the following response from Robert Silverberg:

"I believe the first time I broached this joke was at the 1956 Milford writers' conference, where a bunch of the elder gods -- Sturgeon, Kornbluth, del Rey, Klass -- were talking about their writer's blocks, and one of them asked me if I had ever had one, and in a diabolical moment I said something like, "Yes, it was a Tuesday afternoon last March." I see that I have rung various variations on this over the years. 

RS"

So, not a print cite useful for YBQ, but some first-hand historical background.


> ----
> 
> There is a great quote about Isaac Asimov, which Wikiquote presents as follows:
> 
>   *   He had writer's block once. It was the worst ten minutes of his life.
>      *   Attributed to Harlan Ellison<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harlan_Ellison>, quoted in Page Fright : Foibles and Fetishes of
> Famous Writers (2009) by Harry Bruce
>      *   Variant: Most writers hate to write, and will grasp any excuse to do something else ... There are exceptions. Isaac Asimov actually was
> never happier than sitting at a keyboard - first, his old typewriter; then, the TRS-80< https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80>; and
> later, a more conventional PC. But then, Isaac was unusual, and his experience with writer's block was the worst 10 minutes of his life.
>         *   Jerry Pournelle< https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle>, in "Chaos Manor: Is there an Upgrade in your future?" in
> Dr. Dobb's Journal : Software Tools For The Professional Programmer (2005), Vol. 30, Issues 374-379, p. 9
> 
> Can anyone point me to earlier evidence for this witticism?
> 
> 
> Fred Shapiro
> 
> 


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