Bizarre Writing Routines Of Some Famous Writers

Daily writing routine plays a vital role to every writer.

Even the greatest and famous writers have their own writing routines and they were doing it religiously. Some of them have a unique ways, some have a bizarre ways, some have simple yet effective ways and some have common ways like us.

The difference between them and us in doing it, was the frequency. That is why they already have their passport of greatness. If obstacle comes on their way, they still stick to their routine. As Leo Tolstoy said: “I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine.”

As you analyze their methods in performing their daily routines, you will realize that most of it were simple and are not hard to do.

Let’s take a glimpse to some of the greatest writers daily routine and perhaps take some of it and add it into your existing daily writing routine.

They Woke Up Early In The Morning

Their waking hour is between 4:30 and 7:00 in the morning, but there are some writer woke up between 8am and 10am.

Stephen King Woke up between 6am and 7am, Ernest Hemingway woke up 5:30am even if he’d been drinking the night before, C.S. Lewis at 6:30am. Haruki Murakami woke up at 4am in the morning.

Other famous authors that woke up early in the morning:

JANE AUSTEN woke up early before the other women in the family. VICTOR HUGO woke up at dawn and drunk freshly brewed coffee. MARK TWAIN ate his breakfast early in the morning then start writing until 5:00pm.

A lot of famous writer shifted from an owl flyer into early bird Flyer.

Long Walk For Hours

After hours of writing, some famous writers took a long walk for hours to relax their mind and body. Some of them took a long walk in order for them to create an imaginary writing outlines or drafts inside their head.

It helped them explore the universe of writing.

A lot of famous authors were long walkers namely, John Milton walked up and down his garden from 1pm until 4pm, Charles Dickens walked around London from 2pm until 5pm, Vladimir Nabokov walked at 11am-12 noon and 6:30pm-7:30pm, Thomas Mann walked 7-8 at night and Franz Kafka exercises next to his window then going for a walk from 7:30 until 9:30 in the evening.

Bizarre Writing Routines

• Victor Hugo know for his novel “Les Misérables” took an ice bath on the rooftop of his house and rubbing his body with a horsehair globe between 11am and 12noon.

• Maya Angelou wrote inside hotel.“I keep a hotel room in my hometown and pay for it by the month.

  But I’ve never slept there, I’m usually out of there by 2. And then I go home and I read what I’ve written that morning, and I try to edit then. Clean it up.”

• Joan Didion Sleep on the same room when her book almost done.“When I’m near the end of the book, is sleep in the same room with it. That’s one reason I go home to Sacramento to finish things. Somehow the book doesn’t leave you when you’re asleep right next to it. In Sacramento nobody cares if I appear or not. I can just get up and start typing.”

• Edith Sitwell used to lie down on an open coffin for a while before writing. “I am honestly so tired that all I can do is to lie on my bed with my mouth open.”

• Edmund Wilson was known for being a heavy drinker in his time. “The literary critic and essayist readily imbibed whatever was on offer, including bathtub gin and even pure alcohol”.

• Mark Twain know for his “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” novel. He smoke a lot and one of his closest friend recalled as he visited Twain: “The whole house had to be aired, for he smoked all over it from breakfast to bedtime.”  He had a difficulty in sleeping but later found going to bed on the bath-room floor a soporific.