PSYCHOLOGY & WRITING: Creative Habits of Successful Authors

In my last column, I wrote about writing routines. “Your brain will support habits that facilitate your writing,” I said. “You just have to start them.” This time, I’ll tell you the habits or routines of some established writers—behaviors they’ve found that worked best for them.

When John Grisham first started writing, he developed a set of rituals: “The alarm clock would go off at 5, and I'd jump in the shower. My office was 5 minutes away. And I had to be at my desk, at my office, with the first cup of coffee, a legal pad and write the first word at 5:30, five days a week.” His goal was to write a page every day before he transferred his attention to his job as a lawyer. 

In On Writing, Stephen King said that he’d write ten pages a day without fail, even on holidays. “There are certain things I do if I sit down to write,” he stated. “I have a glass of water or a cup of tea. There’s a certain time I sit down, from 8:00 to 8:30, somewhere within that half hour every morning. I have my vitamin pill and my music, sit in the same seat, and the papers are all arranged in the same places. The cumulative purpose of doing these things the same way every day seems to be a way of saying to the mind, ‘you’re going to be dreaming soon.’”

Truman Capote would supposedly write while lying supine, with a glass of sherry in one hand and a pencil in another. “I am a completely horizontal author,” he said. “I can’t think unless I’m lying down, either in bed or stretched on a couch and with a cigarette and coffee handy. I’ve got to be puffing and sipping. As the afternoon wears on, I shift from coffee to mint tea to sherry to martinis. No, I don’t use a typewriter. Not in the beginning. I write my first version in longhand (pencil). Then I do a complete revision, also in longhand.” 

Contrary to this, Vladimir Nabokov reportedly stood up to write. He liked to put scenes on index cards so he could write them in no particular order. For some novels, he used over two thousand cards, which he would then arrange as he pleased.

Ernest Hemingway aimed for at least 500 words a day. He woke early to get going, so he could write in peace and quiet. “When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again.”

Barbara Kingsolver’s routine also starts early. “Four o’clock [a.m.] is standard. My morning begins with trying not to get up before the sun rises. But when I do, it’s because my head is too full of words, and I just need to get to my desk and start dumping them into a file. I always wake with sentences pouring into my head. So getting to my desk every day feels like a long emergency…. I write a lot of material that I know I’ll throw away. It’s just part of the process. I have to write hundreds of pages before I get to page one.”

Joyce Carol Oates prefers to start before breakfast. On the days she teaches, she writes for an hour or so before leaving for class. On other days, when the writing is going well, she can work for hours without a break, sometimes not stopping to eat until deep into the afternoon.

Simone de Beauvoir would first have tea and wait until mid-morning. Then she’d write. She would quit during the early afternoon to see friends. Around five o'clock, she’d return to work and continue until nine. 

When I researched this piece, I found that many authors noted 4:00 am as the start of their writing day. But then, there was H. P. Lovecraft: “At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left dreamers to their own, there come inspirations and capabilities impossible at any less magical and quiet hour. No one knows whether or not he is a writer unless he has tried writing at night.”

But keep this in mind: after researching the science of perfect timing, best-selling motivational writer Daniel Pink said, “One of the most important insights from the science of timing is that our cognitive abilities do not remain static over the course of the day. They change—in predictable and sometimes extreme ways. That’s why it’s important to do the right work at the right time. Most of us have a period of the day when we’re highest in vigilance, in our ability to focus deeply and bat away distractions.”

I prefer creative intervals. I write best first thing, and also from late afternoon until about 9 pm.  

So, what do you do to keep creativity flowing? Think about making your routine central to your writing life. Watch your focus and figure out when you’re most alert and creative. Arrange your writing around that time period.