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- 📝 Margaret Atwood’s Writing Routine
📝 Margaret Atwood’s Writing Routine
"I write in longhand and preferably on paper with margins and thick lines with wide space between the lines."
Famous Writing Routines
February 11, 2024
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.
Margaret Atwood is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, and essayist, as well as the recipient of numerous writing awards, including two Booker Prizes, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the Governor General's Award.
All writers feel struck by the limitations of language. All serious writers.
When speaking at a 2015 Guardian Live Members’ event, Margaret Atwood was asked whether she considers herself prolific. The Canadian author and poet scoffed at the notion and said “Joyce Carol Oates is prolific; I’m just old.”
However, taking into consideration her 18 poetry books, 18 novels, 11 non-fiction books, nine collections of short fiction, eight children’s books, and two graphic novels published since 1961; it’s a little hard to agree with the writer.
A characteristic that has helped her work output over the years is that, unlike many other writers who have set rituals and working conditions, Atwood can write anywhere.
“I’m not often in a set writing space,” she told The Daily Beast. “I don’t think there’s anything too unusual about it, except that it’s full of books and has two desks. On one desk there’s a computer that is not connected to the internet. On the other desk is a computer that is connected to the internet. You can see the point of that!”
A frequent traveller her whole career, Atwood is used to writing in the unlikeliest of places, from a remote English village to Afghanistan during a round-the-world trip with her family. She began writing The Handmaid’s Tale while on a fellowship in West Berlin during the 1980s, according to The New Yorker.
Unlike many writers, Atwood does not require a particular desk, arranged in a particular way, before she can work. “There’s a good and a bad side to that,” she told me. “If I did have those things, then I would be able to put myself in that fetishistic situation, and the writing would flow into me, because of the magical objects. But I don’t have those, so that doesn’t happen.” The good side is that she can write anywhere, and does so, prolifically.
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Read the rest of Margaret Atwood’s writing routine here.
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