Famous Writing Routines
Uncovering the daily habits of iconic authors like Hemingway and Atwood, offering insights and inspiration for writers at all stages to hone their craft and achieve their goals.
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“Writing may be creative and all those terms,” he says, “but really, I treat it like a job. A plumber doesn’t wait for inspiration to fix the pipes.”
"When I am writing, I get up and start working at 4am. I am a morning person, luckily, so this is pleasurable for me to do."
"Sit myself in my chair and threaten myself like a recalcitrant child: you will sit in this chair and you will not move until you get this scene written, missy."
"I still work in two hour blocks – and I have a huge hourglass, which was a present from Mary, on my desk to ensure that I work for the full 120 minutes of each session."
"It's not a matter of time. I set a realistic objective: how can I inch along to the next paragraph? Inching is what it is."
"I wrote eight novels like that, working at night and in the early morning, while holding down a daytime job."
"I am an agonizingly slow writer. I try to set a five-hundred-word limit a day when writing. I'll sit down around 9 a.m. (after loading up on lots of coffee)."
"I get a lot of work done in hotel rooms. The one solace for loneliness is work. I hand write and then I type. I don’t have a word processor. I write slowly."
"My favorite time to write is between 5 to 10 a.m., because that way you have the total silence before the world starts chasing you down."
"In an unmoored life like mine, sleep and hunger and work arrange themselves to suit themselves, without consulting me."
"I would love to be one of these prolific writers who comes out with a book every two years. But I guess I’m just not that kind of writer."
"I write for about three hours in the morning—from about 9:30 till 12:30—and I do another hour’s work between 6 and 7 in the evening."
