Writing Habits Week: Find Your Rituals

Every morning I wake up before the sun. I make coffee. I review the previous day’s work, and then I do some creative writing. My brain is primed for setting words down before anyone else is awake. Susan Sontag used to keep her mornings sacred, too. She read at night and wrote when she woke up. Everyone knew never to call her before lunch. E.B. White didn’t have the luxury. He lived in a bustling family home, so he said, “A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.”

Still, Joan Didion took an hour alone before dinner to write over a drink. In the morning, she worked through the results. My mentor wasn’t averse to using alcohol to generate inspiration, but Ray Bradbury didn’t need rituals or schedules. He said his passions drove him to his typewriter every day of his life, but if you’re a mere mortal like Sontag, Didion, and Hemingway, rituals and schedules can revolutionise your writing life.

The human brain isn’t good at the same things at every time of the day. Some moments are more sacred than others. My best poetry used to come to me at 23:00. Fortunately, mornings are where it’s at these days, but every writer must learn more than just how to write. We must also learn when. A productive schedule isn’t always enough, so just about every great writer has rituals.

Jack Kerouac used to light a candle and write to its light. C.S. Lewis wrote over endless cups of tea and so does Stephen King. Elena Ferrante said she literally couldn’t write half a line without a lit cigarette. Murakami’s ritual is a lot more complicated:

“When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at four a.m. and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for ten kilometers or swim for fifteen hundred meters (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at nine p.m.
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.
But to hold to such repetition for so long — six months to a year — requires a good amount of mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity.

I’m a lot like him. I can’t stay creative without physical exercise. The serotonin is integral to the quality of my work. I find I need to be hyper-zen to create well, and exercise does the trick. So does a long walk on an oxygen-heavy beach.

No writer is born knowing what will work for them. You’ve got to observe how the quality of your writing changes in tandem with your habits. Inspiration is hard, but rituals make it a hell of a lot easier. Find your rituals. It’s worth the trouble. I promise.