Writers' know-how

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Authors and their rituals

Cover of The Author magazine, photographed by Terry Freedman

The Spring 2019 issue of The Author, the magazine of the UK’s Society of Authors, includes an interesting article about some research carried out by Alison Baverstock and Jackie Steinitz. They looked into the rituals that writers employ in order to write.

I hadn’t really thought about this before, mainly because some of the rituals centre on drinking. If I drink alcohol I can’t think clearly enough to write. Also, I don’t have a favourite chair or time of day or anything like that.

However, on consideration I realise I do have a couple of rituals. One is that I definitely work best in a cafe, with a bottle of water and a latte. So I suppose that counts as a ritual. Another is that, if I am writing training material or a book review for a magazine or some other third party content, I can’t really get going until I have set up the requisite documents. These might include templates I’ve designed in Word. More often, they consist of a document for rough notes and research, and a document for the finished article.

I’s love to know more about other writers’ rituals. but the research itself appears not to be online, which is a great shame.

I wonder if other professionals, especially freelancers, have their own rituals too.