Writers and Their Habits
By Bridget Ng
How do you go about writing? Are you an early bird who puts pen to paper in the golden hours of dawn? Or are you most active during inky nights, when the rest of the world is asleep? What is your preference when it comes to word processors: typing on a laptop, or scribbling in a notebook?
Every writer has a different routine that suits the flow of their thoughts. Here are the practices of several famous authors that will either make you feel grateful you don’t do the same, or inspire you to form a new habit and broaden your creative horizons!
First Light:
Ernest Hemingway wrote “every morning as soon after first light as possible” when there was no one around to disturb him. After writing for several hours, he then stopped at a point when he knew how he was going to continue the story, allowing inspiration to carry over to the next day.
Similarly (and somewhat formidably), when crafting a novel, the Japanese author Haruki Murakami wakes at 4:00 am and works for five or six hours before taking a break for physical activity.
Location, Location, Location:
Agatha Christie reportedly wrote Murder on the Orient Express in room 411 of the Pera Palace Hotel. Mark Twain worked in an octagonal writing hut that his sister-in-law built especially for him, describing it as a “cozy nest” with “just room in it for a sofa, table, and three or four chairs, and when the storms sweep down the remote valley and the lightning flashes behind the hills beyond and the rain beats upon the roof over my head – imagine the luxury of it.” These habits demonstrate the importance of having – in Virginia Woolf’s immortal words – “a room of one’s own”.
The Process of Thought:
Maya Angelou believed that there was a “Big Mind” and a “Little Mind”, and that the Little Mind would occupy you so you could not be distracted while the Big Mind considered deep thoughts. For this reason, she would let her Little Mind do “crossword puzzles or play Solitaire, while the Big Mind would delve deep into the subjects I wanted to write about”.
When considering plot and narrative, William Golding utilised a structured way of working, in which he “plan[ned] a novel from the beginning right to the end”. Conversely, Susan Hill’s process is “an entirely instinctive one. I never plan ahead but work from day to day, hour to hour, page to page. I never know more about what comes next than the thoughts I may keep in my head when I finish for the day.”
The medium between these extremes is Philip Pullman’s approach: “I start out from the beginning with a sort of vague idea of what the story is going to be about. And a sort of vague idea of where it’s going to go and how it’s going to end. And then I just start writing and see what happens.”
Daily Practice:
Susan Sontag had the goal of writing in what she called “the Notebook” every day, which was modelled off Lichtenberg’s Waste Books. The term “waste books” refers to the journals that 18th-century British merchants used to jot down transactions as they occurred, reflecting the purpose of getting initial ideas onto the page before developing them in detail later on.
Ray Bradbury had the routine of reading a short story every night and writing a short story every week for a year. He also recommended aspiring writers to follow a reading program of one short story, one poem and one essay each night for 1,000 nights.
Experimental Exercises:
Writers such as Mark Twain, George Orwell and Edith Wharton found their best creative mindsets when lying down. Truman Capote even claimed to be a “completely horizontal author” whose ideas flowed most effectively when ensconced in bed or on a couch with a cigarette and coffee in hand.
Contrastingly, Vladimir Nabokov wrote on index cards, a practice which allowed him to complete his works non-sequentially while keeping a few cards at arm’s reach at any time in case of a sudden idea.
References
Clear, James. 2013. ‘The Daily Routines of 12 Famous Writers’. James Clear, July 29. https://jamesclear.com/daily-routines-writers.
Harrigan, Chris. 2026. ‘The Daily Writing Routines of Joan Didion, Kurt Vonnegut, Haruki Murakami and Other Famous Writers’. The Story. https://thestory.au/articles/daily-routines-famous-writers/.
Kliest, Nicole. 2025. ‘I Tried the Creative Rituals of 5 Meticulous Authors. Here’s What I Learned’. Vogue, August 22. https://www.vogue.com/article/famous-author-writing-routines.
McLeod, Myles. 2020. ‘3 Ways to Write Your Book’. Medium, February 13. https://medium.com/@mylesjmcleod/3-ways-to-write-your-book-6bd35720e665.
Milgram, Jack. 2018. ‘20 Weird and Wonderful Habits of Famous Writers ’. WTD, April 19. https://writetodone.com/20-weird-and-wonderful-habits-of-famous-writers/.
Penguin Books Australia. 2018. ‘The Creative Habits of 8 Famous Writers From History’. Penguin.Com.Au, September 6. https://www.penguin.com.au/articles/1985-the-creative-habits-of-8-famous-writers-from-history.
Popova, Maria. 2012. ‘The Daily Routines of Great Writers’. The Marginalian, November 20. https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/11/20/daily-routines-writers/.
Stanley, Amber. 2014. ‘9 Weird Habits That Famous Writers Formed to Write Better’. LifeHack, October 3. https://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/9-weird-habits-that-famous-writers-formed-write-better.html.
Temple, Emily. 2018a. ‘Inside the Rooms Where 20 Famous Books Were Written’. Literary Hub, October 9. https://lithub.com/inside-the-rooms-where-20-famous-books-were-written/.
Temple, Emily. 2018b. ‘Ray Bradbury’s Greatest Writing Advice’. Literary Hub, August 22. https://lithub.com/ray-bradburys-greatest-writing-advice/.
