📝 Toni Morrison’s Writing Routine

“What do I need in order to release my imagination?”

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.

Toni Morrison was an American author and editor, best-known for her novels The Bluest Eye; Song of Solomon; and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Beloved; as well as for winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.

I tell my students one of the most important things they need to know is when they are their best, creatively. They need to ask themselves, What does the ideal room look like? Is there music? Is there silence? Is there chaos outside or is there serenity outside? What do I need in order to release my imagination?

Toni Morrison, The Art of Fiction No. 134 | Paris Review

Throughout her career, Toni Morrison was never able to dedicate herself solely to her books. In between her writing, editing job at Random House and teaching role at Princeton University, as well as raising her children (Harold Ford and Slade Kevin), the Nobel Prize-winning author often had to steal time away to work.

It seems as though this method of writing worked best for Morrison. In a 1980 interview with the Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin, she recounted a story about going away to the countryside with a friend to just focus on writing. After staying there for a couple of weeks, the two came back empty-handed. No writing was done during that entire period.

A similar instance occurred when her work schedule at Random House changed and Morrison found herself at home during the day. “I was distracted by the place, which I was seeing for the first time—not a day off or a holiday, but a long period of being home regularly without having to travel from place to place, without having anything else to do,” she recalled. “It was startling, and I didn’t work at all.”

For Morrison, juggling her various roles is all she’s ever known. In 1965, the esteemed author began working as an editor at L. W. Singer, a textbook division of Random House, in Syracuse, New York. Two years later, she became the first black female senior editor in the fiction department at Random House. It was around this time that she began working on her first novel, The Bluest Eye, waking up at 4am every morning to write for a few hours before heading off to her day job.

In a 1998 interview with Salon, Morrison explained how she managed to find pockets of time during the day to work (or at least think) about her writing.

They do anything that they can. They organize it. And you learn how to use time. You don't have to learn how to wash the dishes every time you do that. You already know how to do that. So, while you're doing that, you're thinking. You know, it doesn't take up your whole mind. Or just on the subway. I would solve a lot of literary problems just thinking about a character in that packed train, where you can't do anything anyway. Well, you can read the paper, but you're sort of in there. And then I would think about, well, would she do this? And then sometimes I'd really get something good. By the time I'd arrived at work, I would jot it down so I wouldn't forget. It was a very strong interior life that I developed for the characters, and for myself, because something was always churning. There was no blank time.

The Salon Interview - Toni Morrison | Salon

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