Do you have a daily writing routine? Many famous novelists swear by them.
Me, a not-so-famous writer? Not so much.
Unlike Ernest Hemingway, Anaïs Nin and Roald Dahl, all of whom made sure they got their writing done (or at least started) in the morning, I’ve found that I tend to write better in the afternoon and early evening (deadlines allowing). I’m a tremendous faffer*, so I take a while to get going – but as long as I have an endless supply of tea and a bit of dark chocolate, I’m good.
Stephen King’s morning follows this pattern:
“I have a glass of water or a cup of tea. There’s a certain time I sit down, from 8:00 to 8:30, somewhere within that half hour every morning. I have my vitamin pill and my music, sit in the same seat, and the papers are all arranged in the same places… The cumulative purpose of doing these things the same way every day seems to be a way of saying to the mind, ‘you’re going to be dreaming soon.'” (From Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King, by Lisa Rogak,)
Now this all sounds perfectly reasonable. Contrast it with Hunter S. Thompson, author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, whose day reportedly began at 3.05pm with Chivas Regal with the morning papers, followed by four hours of more Chivas Regal, cocaine, Dunhill cigarettes and ‘grass to take the edge off the day’.
A 7pm lunch at the Woody Creek Tavern comprised Heineken, two margaritas, coleslaw, a taco salad, a double order of fried onion rings, carrot cake, ice cream, a bean fritter, Dunhills, another Heineken and cocaine. This was followed by more cocaine, acid, alcohol etc., before he started writing at midnight.
His full daily routine is reported here. I’m amazed he made it past 40, never mind the grand old age of 67.
Conversely, Haruki Murakami, Japanese author of Norwegian Wood, seems to have embraced the lifestyle of a ‘LinkedInfluencer’ with his ascetic routine:
“When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at 4am and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for 10km or swim for 1500m (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at 9pm. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.” (Source)
But what about women writers? Writer Kate Jones in A Narrative of Their Own describes the routine of Jane Austen, perhaps the most famous female writer of all.
“Like many writers and artists, Jane liked to get up early, before the family were around. She would first practise her piano, and unlike many women, was surprisingly exempt from many of the domestic chores of the household. [She] would aim to write every day, sitting close by a window for the light. She frequently wrote at a small walnut table situated in the corner of the room… she did not limit herself to just writing in the morning, instead fitting in writing sessions when she could.”
Austen wasn’t the grammar pedant many imagine great writers to be, as Jones reveals:
“Jane would make an initial draft of her manuscripts, crossing out sentences as she went, then revising the whole work as a piece. She liked to read her drafts aloud to her friends and family, particularly her sister Cassandra. She doesn’t appear to have been much bothered by perfecting grammar and punctuation.”
In a 1978 interview, Joan Didion, author of The Year of Magical Thinking, revealed that she gave her ideas an ’incubation period’ after writing – allowing her words to mellow before reworking them:
“I need an hour alone before dinner, with a drink, to go over what I’ve done that day. I can’t do it late in the afternoon because I’m too close to it. Also, the drink helps. It removes me from the pages. So I spend this hour taking things out and putting other things in. Then I start the next day by redoing all of what I did the day before, following these evening notes. When I’m really working I don’t like to go out or have anybody to dinner, because then I lose the hour. If I don’t have the hour, and start the next day with just some bad pages and nowhere to go, I’m in low spirits. Another thing I need to do, when I’m near the end of the book, is sleep in the same room with it.”
No wonder George Orwell thought writing a book was, “…a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness”!
How about you? If you write for a living or for pleasure, what works best for you? Are you full-on Hunter S. Thompson or more Jane Austen?
As usual, the internet is a chockablock with fascinating information about what it takes for writers to be able to put pen to paper. Check out Writing Routines, Medium and The Marginalian if you fancy going down this particular rabbit-hole and have a few hours spare!
*A faffer is someone who wastes time doing unimportant stuff to avoid doing what they know they should be doing. As in ‘faffing about’.
I don’t write books, but I do edit nonfiction ones. If you’re an author, organisation or publisher who needs help to make your prose sing, ask me about my CopyDoc nonfiction editing services.
