📝 Mark Haddon’s Writing Routine

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Mark Haddon never set out to become a novelist. He thought he might be a scientist, maybe even a paleoanthropologist. His early years were shaped by science books, not fiction. His family wasn’t especially bookish, and the idea of becoming a writer felt inconceivable. But in his teens, literature took hold. Reading RS Thomas for O-levels was a revelation. Later, Patrick White opened up a sense of awe he had previously only found in astronomy.

Haddon began his creative life as an illustrator, scraping together a living by drawing for magazines like the New Statesman and The Banker. That work eventually led to writing and illustrating children’s books. His first, Gilbert’s Gobstopper, was published in 1987. He went on to produce nearly twenty more. But fiction for adults proved more elusive. He wrote five adult novels before any were published. Most ended up in the bin. “You never lose the good things,” he said. “They sit at the back of your mind waiting for somewhere else to land.”

His breakthrough came in 2003 with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a novel about a 15-year-old boy who sees the world in a precise, logical way. The book was published simultaneously for adults and children, won multiple awards, and became a global bestseller. It also sparked a long and sometimes fraught conversation about how writers depict neurodivergence. Haddon has often said that the novel isn’t about Asperger’s or autism—it’s about seeing the world from the outside.

Since Curious Incident, Haddon has written novels (A Spot of Bother, The Red House, The Porpoise), short stories (The Pier Falls), poetry, and a play (Polar Bears). His work often returns to families, mental health, and private grief. He’s not drawn to big events or tidy narratives. “I’m interested in small things that reveal who we are,” he’s said. His characters are often flawed, confused, and trying to make sense of themselves. Empathy runs through everything he writes.

He also paints, sculpts, and occasionally exhibits his artwork. After a triple heart bypass in 2019, and a long recovery from the ensuing brain fog, he found it hard to read or write. Volunteering for the Samaritans helped. So did coming off psychiatric medication. Living with Bipolar II, he’s open about the challenges of mood and meaning, and how hard it can be to stay afloat.

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Mark Haddon’s daily writing routine

Haddon describes writer’s block as his default state. Some days he writes. Some weeks he doesn’t. He often won’t know it’s going to be a bad day until he’s already wasted hours staring at a blank screen or deleting clumsy sentences. But when he’s working, he’s persistent.

He begins his mornings in a string of local cafes near his home in Oxford. He won’t name them, but he thanks a couple in the acknowledgments of The Pier Falls. The ambient noise helps him concentrate, and the presence of strangers makes procrastination harder. He’ll re-read what he wrote the day before, polish the language, and slowly edge into new material.

Haddon rarely writes more than four hours a day. After that, the quality drops. Writing, he says, is like surgery or flying a plane—if you’re not fully switched on, it’s best to stop. In the afternoons, he’ll paint, draw, go for a run, or handle domestic tasks. That second half of the day is important. It clears the mind and helps ideas percolate.

He doesn’t write in sequence. Scenes are built, rebuilt, and often discarded. He estimates that he throws away at least three-quarters of what he produces. His wife, Sos Eltis, a literature professor, is his first reader and toughest editor. Haddon is a ruthless reviser. He doesn’t believe in inspiration so much as relentless editing. “I’m not a terribly good writer,” he once said, “but I’m a persistent editor.”

He doesn’t set word counts. Progress is measured in hindsight. On a rare day when 1,000 words survive the next morning’s cull, he feels a sense of deep contentment. Not euphoria—just quiet relief. That inner voice saying, “That wasn’t good enough… write more, write better… time is running out,” finally quiets down.

When stuck, he’ll take a long walk along the Thames or put on a box set of Nordic noir. Hot showers help. So does reading something very good—or very bad. The best books make him want to write. The worst make him feel he can do better. “It’s quite easy to talk in grand terms about why you write,” he’s said, “but a lot of the joy is solving the problem.”

He doesn’t plan his books in advance. Ideas accumulate slowly. Some come from half-finished drafts or abandoned stories. Others emerge from paintings or real-life images. What matters is emotional truth: getting to that moment when the words feel like they were written by someone not quite you. A click, like a door closing softly onto its latch.

These days, Haddon is still writing—short stories mostly, though some are long enough to qualify as novellas. He doesn’t rush to publish. After the long shadow of Curious Incident, he’s careful not to overexpose the work. He’d rather let it grow quietly, offstage. The stories, he says, will find their own shape.

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