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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"I have nothing against my laptop, but it’s too fast, too easy. Writing by hand is more like drawing."
“You write in a poetic mood. The next morning, you edit like an engineer.”
"It’s a long and slow haul, and there’s nothing about the process that is particularly interesting.”
“I will stop in the middle of a sentence in order to avoid exceeding my page limit."
“I write first thing in the morning after having breakfast with my husband,” she told The Guardian. “Then I clear the table and sit down to work.”
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“The way you write a novel is for the first 83 drafts you pretend that nobody is ever, ever going to read it.”
“I’m a slow writer,” she’s said. “But I write all the time. I don’t feel alive unless I’m writing.”
“I’m always pretending that I’m sitting across from somebody. I’m telling them a story, and I don’t want them to get up until it’s finished.”
“You have to trust your own voice. You have to earn the right to be read, and then you have to fight to keep every reader.”
“I would not think about whether I had a good idea; I would just write it. I would not think about whether I was capable; I would just put my pen on the page.”
“I don’t go out. I forget to eat. I sleep very little. And once it’s done, I veg out and play video games for six weeks.”