An Ode to Writing Rituals
In which I draw questionable connections between writing, the Catholic Mass and using the toilet
Immanuel Kant always took a long walk at 3:30 p.m.; Carl Jung said “Good morning” to his frying pan; Graham Greene wrote exactly 500 words longhand, stopping mid-sentence when he hit his mark; and Hunter S. Thompson snorted enough cocaine to kill a moose.
Writer’s rituals fascinate me.
The creative side of writing is such a weird, fickle, undefinable thing—ideas sparked in dreams, connections percolating while you’re chopping carrots, inspiration striking as you massage your bunions. But all the boring stuff surrounding that creativity isn’t undefinable at all. That’s concrete. It’s finding a quiet nook in a loud home, sitting at an old desk, stretching tired limbs, sipping black coffee, staring out a window, typing at a laptop, scratching notes on lined paper, etc.
You can’t really learn much about how great writers got their ideas—it’s all too ephemeral. But you can learn about the routines and rituals that surrounded those ideas, the space that made them possible. And that’s what really interests me. How did the greats actually get their work done?
Even the wildest writers, the ones who nurtured self-aggrandizing myths about how nuts they were, tended to fall into rituals while they were working. During one period of Jack Kerouac’s career, he would light a candle at the beginning of each day’s writing, and then blow it out at the end.
Hemingway wrote first thing in the morning, standing with his typewriter mounted on a bookshelf. And while he wasn’t strict on word count, he stuck to a rule: “I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day.”
Stephen King, on the other hand, famously sticks to a 2,000-words-a-day routine, after starting his morning with breakfast and a walk. And early in his career before he got sober, he did so much cocaine he had to sit at his typewriter with tissues up his nose to stop the bleeding … but that’s neither here nor there.
On the opposite end of the substance spectrum, Don DeLillo doesn’t eat, drink coffee, or smoke while he’s working to keep his head clear, and he used to take a run in between his morning and afternoon sessions at his desk.
Speaking of running, Haruki Murakami gets in a few miles every afternoon while he’s writing—and the dude gets up at 4 a.m. to get started. I think what he’s said about his process is particularly illuminating.
“I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.”
Mesmerism is a great word for why all these great writers seem to gravitate toward rituals—no matter how different the particulars may be. I think ritual reduces resistance to the work and inculcates a certain, somewhat unnatural state of mind that you need when you’re trying to write.
A few consistencies across almost all writer rituals are:
A particular time (i.e., first thing in the morning)
A particular place (i.e., the upstairs desk)
Steps or conditions before the writing begins (i.e., going for a walk, lighting a candle)
I know it’s the cradle Catholic in me, but I can’t help but see a weird parallel to Sunday Mass. The repeated time and place is obvious, but it’s more than that. For those of you that weren’t raised eating fish on Fridays and desperately fearing the eternal burning fires of hell, here’s all the steps a Catholic goes through before the Mass even starts.
Walk into the church.
Dip fingers into fount of holy water.
Make sign of cross on forehead.
Genuflect on one knee outside the pew.
Make the sign of the cross again.
Enter pew. Kneel. Say a prayer.
Finally, sit.
All of these repetitive steps, undertaken every week are meant to help you leave the loud, busy outside world and enter a quieter, more attentive, worshipful state of mind. These physical movements help your body tell your mind that it’s time for Mass.
I think writing rituals, in many ways, do the same thing. One of the hardest parts—maybe the hardest part—of the writing process is often just sitting down and starting. The repeated ritual preparation helps serve as a bridge over those troubled waters.
Before the actual, painful writing, maybe you always have coffee in the same mug, sit down at the same spot, open the same notebook, even recite the same affirmation or a prayer or passage. Then you write. And if you take those same steps every day, you’re training your mind to be ready. Gradually, the feeling of writing becomes less white-knuckle. Your brain learns what’s expected of it at that time and place, when you sit at that same spot and do those those same things. It knows it’s time to write.
(Not to be gross, but you ever go to the bathroom at the same time for a long stretch of days, and then your intestines are sort of raring to go at that same time every day? Sorry, ok, gross, I know, sorry, but yeah, it’s also a little like that.)
Right now, I’m a morning man. I wake up, shower, go to my desk, write 1,500 words, stop. And I’m a little embarrassed by this, but I actually repeat a little prayer to myself before and after writing to mark the start and end of the process. While I don’t think I’m in any position to be tossing out advice, I will say that the ritual has worked for me. It’s easier than writing willy-nilly. A lot easier. And I find that ideas come quicker when I’m deep into weeks of the routine. Mesmerism, just like Murakami said.
And that’s all the wisdom/idiocy I have in me for today’s Stack of Subs, so I’ll leave you with this quote from Dorothy Parker that I think is fitting and wish ya a good week.
“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”