It took several years for Kerouac’s agent, Sterling Lord, to finally find a home for the book, at the Viking Press. Please log in again. made a lucky sweater from rabbit feet and wrote only when she was wearing it. James Joyce wrote lying on his stomach in bed, with a large blue pencil, clad in a white coat, and composed most of Finnegans Wake with crayon pieces on cardboard. Herny Miller's "Daily Program" actually sounds like a pretty perfect way to spend your time: "MORNINGS: If groggy, type notes and allocate, as stimulus.If in fine fettle, write. Privacy policy. It was never my goal as I wrote this book to discover what made literary geniuses tick. Neither does J.K. Rowling. Then there was the color-coding of the muses: In addition to his surprising gastronome streak, Alexandre Dumas was also an aesthete: For decades, he penned all of his fiction on a particular shade of blue paper, his poetry on yellow, and his articles on pink; on one occasion, while traveling in Europe, he ran out of his precious blue paper and was forced to write on a cream-colored pad, which he was convinced made his fiction suffer. Or do you like to play it by ear? The large crayons thus helped him see what he was writing, and the white coat helped reflect more light onto the page at night. When he was done, he marched into his editor Robert Giroux’s office and proudly spun out the scroll across the floor. The most important thing is to develop a habit of writing that suits you and the rhythm of your life. Do you want to find out about more writers with weird habits? Based on the above, a morning must be a dead spot of writers’ creativity. Have you ever considered what it takes to write a book that everyone will later call a masterpiece? 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. I usually do all my first drafts … Writing for college professors and writing for thousands of people who will read and love your works are two different things. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Most famously, however, twenty-something O’Connor mail-ordered six peacocks, a peahen, and four peachicks, which later populated her fiction. But unfortunately, we can not find any other practical use for them. Drinking massive amounts of coffee French novelist Honoré de Balzac fueled his creative writing by consuming around 50 cups of coffee a day. had a habit of laying in an open coffin for a few minutes every morning before writing. It’s easier to think positively at the start of a day; positive thinking leads to better results. Published September 23, 2013 One page at a time. These tales don’t hold a secret formula for writing a great novel. 2020 Bustle Digital Group. Grab the fully-functional FREE TRIAL of Writer's Blocks here, How Joining a Virtual Book club Can Help Deal With Coronavirus Stress, You Are What You read: Bookshelves of the Famous, How to Make Money Translating Other Authors’ Works (or Your Own), Inspired to Write: 20 Inspiring Quotes to Help You Through Difficult Times, 7 Powerful Lessons From 7 Legendary Writers, Gratitude Journal: How to Calm Anxiety and Boost Your Immunity, 4 Killer Ways to Find Ideas for Your Next Bestseller, Word Count of Famous Novels (& How Long it Took to Write Them)[Infographic], How to Double Your Chance of Landing a Book Deal (Before You’ve Written a Single Word), How to Earn Money as a Freelance Writer in 2020, 5 Simple but Crippling Blogging Mistakes (& How to Avoid Them). Below, I share with you some of my favorite writers’ work habits … and it’s obvious that there’s no single way to success. So, welcome to the world of uncertainty! The login page will open in a new tab. Note: Allow sufficient time during daylight to make an occasional visit to museums or an occasional sketch or an occasional bike ride. I still don’t do all my writing standing up. For example, Hunter Thompson asked to fire his remains into the sky. But despite her highly flexible outlook on writing schedules, J.K Rowling is still a planner at heart and meticulously plans out her story before she even gets started on the writing process. As I mentioned, I started doing it myself a bit lately, and I do think there’s something to it. Grab the fully-functional FREE TRIAL of Writer's Blocks here, How Joining a Virtual Book club Can Help Deal With Coronavirus Stress, You Are What You read: Bookshelves of the Famous, How to Make Money Translating Other Authors’ Works (or Your Own), Inspired to Write: 20 Inspiring Quotes to Help You Through Difficult Times, 7 Powerful Lessons From 7 Legendary Writers, Gratitude Journal: How to Calm Anxiety and Boost Your Immunity, 4 Killer Ways to Find Ideas for Your Next Bestseller, Word Count of Famous Novels (& How Long it Took to Write Them)[Infographic], How to Double Your Chance of Landing a Book Deal (Before You’ve Written a Single Word), How to Earn Money as a Freelance Writer in 2020, 5 Simple but Crippling Blogging Mistakes (& How to Avoid Them). 4. And even if you're not a caffeine-addled writer trying to frantically crank out an entire novel in a month, you can find a way to balance regular writing with eating, sleeping, and perhaps even socializing. Opposite Habits of Famous Writers.


Many can identify with the time they pulled an all-nighter because a novel was just that good.