📝 Elmore Leonard’s Writing Routine

“I’ve stayed with it for over 50 years and it’s paid off.”

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.

Elmore Leonard was an American author, short story writer, and screenwriter, best-known for his novels in the Western, crime fiction and suspense sub-genres, many of which have been adapted into films.

I've stayed with it for over 50 years and it's paid off. You need to be determined and write every day, even when it's hard. 

The secrets of my success: Elmore Leonard | Daily Mail

During the early years of Elmore Leonard’s writing career, he was spending most of his hours as a copywriter at Campbell-Ewald, an advertising agency where he churned out copy for brands like Chevrolet. To juggle his full-time job and writing aspirations, Leonard set his alarm for 5am every morning so that he could get in 2-hours of writing, before heading off to his day job.

“The alarm would go off and I’d turn it off and go back to sleep. But once I got into that routine, it got easier,” Leonard said in a Daily Mail interview. “I’d sit in the cold living room in the semi-darkness and write two pages in those two hours. Pretty soon, I was waking up automatically at 5am.”

He wrote five books and 30 short stories (a mix of Westerns and crime thrillers) with this set-up. It was a necessary arrangement for the author-screenwriter who was also supporting a growing family. “If you have a family, you have to stick with the job until you feel financially secure enough, and I’d had four of my five children before I quit the agency to write full-time,” he explained in a GQ interview.

I liked western movies a lot, and I wanted to sell to Hollywood right away and make some money. I approached this with a desire to write but also to make as much money as I could doing it. I didn’t see anything wrong with that at all. I think the third one sold, and that was it. After that, they’ve all sold since then. But then the market dried up, and I had to switch to crime.

The Writing Life | Los Angeles Times

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