36 Writing Routines: Which Will Work For You?
Writing routines and habits are as unique as the person performing them. For most of us, writing is a collection of habits picked up, stolen, acquired, and invented over time—often in response to trial and error.
Which will work for you? Hard to say, better to try and fail and try again. As Toni Morrison said: “Writers all devise ways to approach that place where they expect to make the contact, where they become the conduit, or where they engage in this mysterious process.”
For years, I wrote in the afternoon/evening, stopping for dinner. I’d often have a drink or two while writing, but then I more or less stopped drinking (I still enjoy a glass of mezcal or whisky, but only once or twice a month), Without the wine, afternoon writing lost its appeal. I’m also an early riser, so I tried the morning, and it worked wonderfully. If you want to know more about my routine, you can read about it here.
Here are ways writers have created a process for crafting some of the English language’s finest works. Some will work for you, some won’t. Mix and match, try the same idea with your own twist. Learn more about writing routines, writing habits, and writing superstitions of famous writers. Each tip is one approach, followed by the famous author’s name.
Create a Writing Time of Day
1. Wake up at 4 a.m. and work for 5-6 hours, exercise, read, go to bed by 9 p.m. Everyday.—Haruki Murakami
2. Get up and make a cup of coffee while it is still dark—it must be dark—then drink the coffee and watch light arrive. “For me, light is the signal in the transition. It’s not being in the light, it’s being there before it arrives. It enables me, in some sense.”—Toni Morrison
3. Write at night, similar to Gillian Flynn, Robert Frost, Stefanie Meyer, Sylvia Plath, Alan Ginsberg, Pablo Neruda, Franz Kafka, and Charles Dickens.
4. Write while at work. Use two documents up on the screen with a toggle between the two.—George Saunders
Why these work: Writing is a creative effort. Producing sentences and stories relies on your brain shifting to a more inventive mode. Write when your creativity is at its peak, whenever that is.
Establish Writing Locations
5. Write in a hotel room from 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., accompanied by the Bible, a dictionary, and a thesaurus. Go home and edit.—Maya Angelou
6. When finishing up a book, sleep in the same room as the book.—Joan Didion.
7. Write in the living room, with the hubbub of daily life around you. —E.B. White (note: Richard Bausch also subscribes to this method).
8. Work in coffee shops. —J.K. Rowling (though she famously wrote much of the last Harry Potter book in a hotel room at The Balmoral Hotel. in Edinburgh.)
9. Write at the public library. —Donna Tartt.
10. Write in the bathtub and back seat of your car. —Vladimir Nabokov (note: His first English novel, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, was written in a bathroom in Paris, his valise set across a bidet as a writing desk).
11. Writing demands “complete, noiseless privacy.” —William Styron
Why these work: Returning to the same location and environment (noise level) for your creative work helps shift you into a more imaginative mode.
Consider Writing Fast vs. Writing Slow
12. Think over what you want to say, even if it takes hours. Then write a paragraph or two. —Joan Didion
13. Write hundreds of pages before you get to page one. —Barbara Kingsolver
14. “Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft—you just get it down.” —Anne Lamott
15. Mull over story ideas while walking. —Virginia Woolf
16. Plan and organize thoughts using a color-coded table “showing all the suspects, with blue ink for clues and red ink for red herrings.” —J.K. Rowling.
Why these work: Some writers prefer to think and write slowly, and produce some of their best work with the first draft. Many more writers craft paragraphs a bit faster, then go back and edit for clarity, length, and sentence construction.
Use the Right Writing Tools
17. Write with a felt-tip pen or a pencil, on yellow or white legal pads. —Susan Sontag
18. Bring two pencils and paper for writing on airplanes. —Margaret Atwood
19. Write with a Biro Cristal with a bespoke gold cap. When the pen’s ink dries up, swap the cap. —Ian Fleming
20. Write in Times Roman, 10-point font. Or something different than you use for other work.—George Saunders (Note: by contrast, once I was at a writing residency with Allan Gurganus, and he used HUGE font on a large monitor).
21. Craft your nonfiction essay, short story, book of poetry, or horror novel using a fountain pen.—Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Dylan Thomas, Stephen King
22. Use a pencil to make edits on your printed page. After getting through a paragraph, make changes on the laptop.—George Saunders
23. Sharpen 24 Palomino Blackwing pencils, place them by your desk. Use each pencil for 4-5 lines of writing, then place it point-down in a box. After using all 24 pencils, resharpen the tips, and begin again.—John Steinbeck
Why these work: Different tools work for different writers. if you get writer’s block, a great solution is to switch HOW you write…switch to paper and pen, or switch to computer if you’ve been using a pen.
Involve Elixirs and Such
24. Drink alcohol, then review your day’s work.—Joan Didion.
25. Vitamin pill and music between 8 and 8:30 a.m., sit in the same seat, papers in the same places. —Stephen King (note: before he gave up alcohol, King’s routine was considerably less sober).
26. Tea, then 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., write. Visit friends. Then, 5 p.m. until 9, write. —Simone deBeauvoir
27. Rely on prayer or the “constant visualisation of the holy grail that is the finished, published version of your resplendent book.” —Margaret Atwood
28. Cocaine from 3:45 p.m. until midnight, then writing. —Hunter S. Thompson.
29. I usually write at night. I always keep my whiskey within reach; so many ideas that I can't remember in the morning pop into my head. —William Faulkner
Why these work: Stimulants and depressants can switch you into a new psychological mode and decrease inhibition. However, routine alcohol and drug use greatly shorten your writing career and aren’t a good crutch to rely on. Try tea or vitamins first.
Set Writing Hours Per Day and Timing
30. Write for 5-6 hours a day without interruption. You may write many words, and throw out 90% of that first draft. “Then you can relax and even almost enjoy ‘writing badly.’” —Karen Russell
31. Start new novels on January 8 (or a meaningful day to you) every year. Burn sage, light candles, and spend the day with the door closed. —Isabel Allende
32. Take a break for a few days or even weeks. Write 16 hours a day or when your kids are at play practice, —Colleen Hoover
Why these work: You can write for many or few hours daily, or invoke new books on the same day—just keep writing as a habit.
Create Your Writing Quota and Rules
33. Write one page a day in the same place, at the same time daily. —John Grisham
34. Write every morning, 7 days a week, and establish a quota of pages. If you miss your quota, you must make it up. —Alice Munro
35. Write in longhand: “You achieve shorter declarative sentences.” —James Baldwin
36. Create an entry at day’s end: “Odd complaints, half-formed ideas, questions that I had about the work, and then returning to it the very next day as I began.” Keep open any particular documents, names of those documents, and page numbers. —Alexander Chee
Why these work: Setting a word-count quota or longhand requirement is a type of writing rule. Creating rules like these help writers overcome procrastination and excuses that can prevent progress or even stop you before you begin.
Sources:
Daily Writing Routines of Famous Writers
Famous Writers Talk about Writing
J.K. Rowling’s Writing Routine on Twitter
6 Tips from the Daily Writing Routines of Famous Authors
Writing Routines of Famous Authors
Margaret Atwood’s Rules for Writers
The Pens of the World’s Most Famous Authors
George Saunders On Writing and Teaching
Alexander Chee’s On Staying Organized While Writing