At first glance, the technique of automatic writing seems the exact opposite of constrained writing, which Mathews championed. He did not eschew the surrealist idea of writing without stopping to plan or censor one’s thoughts, however. Examples of his automatic writing appear in 20 Lines a Day.
Inspired by Stendal’s exhortation “Twenty lines a day, genius or not” but taking this advice in a different direction, Mathews explained that for about a year he “began many writing days with a stint of at least twenty lines, written about whatever came into my head on a pad reserved for that purpose.” The result was his book 20 Lines a Day, which was published in 1988 and which Marie Chaix translated into French. The French translation was published in 1994.
The 46th entry is dated July 27, 1983 and written at Wainscott. Mathews’ text begins “We say, to write about a subject, to write on a subject, to write of something ...” continuting to ask “Would it be possible, and if so what would it be like, to write around, or in, or into ...”