📝 Elizabeth Gilbert’s Writing Routine

"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."

Welcome to Famous Writing Routines, where we explore the daily habits, writing process, and work routines of some of the most renowned authors throughout history.

Elizabeth Gilbert is an American journalist and author, best-known for her 2006 memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, which has sold over 12 million copies and has been translated into over 30 languages.

I became a writer the way other people become monks or nuns. I made a vow to writing, very young. I became Bride-of-Writing. I was writing’s most devotional handmaiden. I built my entire life around writing. I didn’t know how else to do this. I didn’t know anyone who had ever become a writer. I had no, as they say, connections. I had no clues. I just began.

Thoughts on Writing | Elizabeth Gilbert

By her very own admission, there is nothing fancy about Elizabeth Gilbert’s writing routine. There’s no romantic notion of the inspiration-struck artist, magical talisman or quirky ritual that she needs to rely on to get started on her work each day. Instead, the American author, whose 2006 memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, turned her into a best-seller, describes her daily routine as blue-collar and workmanlike.

“I have no German Romantic idea about work,” she admitted to The Daily Beast. “There’s no fugue state, you know? I could no more write at 3 a.m. than I could with a quill pen. I keep farmer’s hours and I have that sort of plotting and plodding way.”

For Gilbert, her life is divided into two distinct times — writing mode and non-writing mode. She approaches her work as a seasonal event, only actively writing a book once every few years while spending the time outside of that on planning and researching her next one as well as promoting her previous books.

After she’s spent several years researching and preparing for her next book, she’ll clean her house, tell everyone in her life not to expect to hear from her in a while. After that, she tells Copyblogger, “clear off my schedule until I have a nice long block of empty time. Bow down. Ask for grace. Commit to the idea of collaborating with the book, not going to war against it. Cross fingers. Make a cup of tea. Begin.”

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