Truman Capote was unable to write while seated. In a 1957 interview with the Paris Review in his Brooklyn Heights apartment, he described himself as “a completely horizontal author,” indicating that this is documented rather than mythologized.Stretched out on a couch or bed with a pencil and a pad of paper, they drank coffee first, followed by mint tea, sherry, and martinis. The man wrote In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, regardless of your opinion of his eccentricities. Something was functioning.
It’s understandable why some sections of the literary internet have become somewhat fixated on the rituals of well-known authors. Finding out that the people whose books transformed your life were also, in many ways, merely trying to get themselves to sit down and do the work is both reassuring and a little annoying. The customs are not magical. They involve a negotiation between the writing self and the self-doubting, procrastinating, distracted self that would prefer to do nearly anything else.
Before the world had a chance to interfere, Ernest Hemingway wrote in the coolest, quietest part of the day, shortly after first light. He adhered to the rule of never emptying the well entirely and leaving fuel for the start the following morning. This concept is more complex than it seems. The majority of people attempt to continue until they reach a wall, at which point they sit down facing the wall the following day. Hemingway was creating his own momentum, which required a different kind of discipline to halt and a different kind of discipline to sustain. Perhaps this is the aspect of his routine that people most frequently overlook when attempting to borrow it.
More than most people, Haruki Murakami explores the concept of routine. He gets up at four in the morning to work on a novel, writes for five or six hours, runs ten kilometers or swims fifteen hundred meters in the afternoon, reads, listens to music, and goes to bed at nine. Each day. for several months. He has characterized this as a type of self-hypnosis rather than productivity advice, where the repetition becomes its own signal that draws the brain into a deeper state just by identifying the pattern. It will be the same day every day for six months until the novel is finished. It sounds extreme, and it most likely is. However, there is a case to be made because Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the Shore emerged from it.
The body side of the equation was approached differently by Charles Dickens. Every day, regardless of the weather, he spent three hours walking through London after writing by himself in his study from nine in the morning until two in the afternoon. It was not a leisurely stroll. Processing was going on. Dickens’ feet moved as he worked through sentences and scenes, allowing the physical rhythm to accomplish what the desk was unable to. Kurt Vonnegut performed push-ups. Joan Didion was a swimmer. It sounds like a joke, but the composer Igor Stravinsky is said to have stood on his head when he was blocked. They all follow the same pattern: physical movement serves as a reset rather than a break. In order for the mind to go elsewhere, the body must go somewhere.
Stephen King’s method focuses more on environmental control than physical control. He purposefully avoids the visual temptation to look up, out, or anywhere other than the page by writing in the same location, at the same time, and with his desk facing a wall. He wants to write two thousand words every day, including on holidays. Some find its austerity inspiring, while others find it depressing, but King himself has maintained that the entire point is to simply show up without waiting for inspiration. He believes that waiting for the perfect moment to write is simply not writing.
Looking at all of these, it’s important to note that none of the rituals are about the quality of the writing at the time; rather, they’re about entering a state that allows for writing at all. Whether it’s Capote’s first cup of coffee or Murakami’s alarm at four, the pre-writing trigger tells the nervous system that this is the time, this is the mode, and this is what we do now. It’s what psychologists refer to as a conditioned response. Authors simply refer to it as the “thing that works.” After enough repetition, the brain begins to cooperate.
As you read all of this, you get the impression that the rituals are a little pointless and that what they’re really talking about is the challenge of persevering through challenging situations every day. The existence of a ritual is more important than its particulars.
Alyssa Bennett as editor at vclib.org, oversees editorial coverage of literary criticism, cultural analysis, political commentary. Alyssa brings rigorous research discipline, in-depth knowledge, experience, and an approachable editorial voice to subjects that most readers find thought-provoking and culturally significant. Her career spans the intersection of literary journalism, political writing, and educational publishing.