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From what I have read from several sources --especially from the Paris Review interviews- the routines for many good writers share the following traits: - Most

From what I have read from several sources --especially from the Paris Review interviews- the routines for many good writers share the following traits: - Most productive time is in the morning, right after waking up + optional coffee/breakfast. - The time slot dedicated to writing lasts 4-6 continuous hours and that's it for the day, as far as for the pure creative process goes. - No distraction when writing, so it is not weird to see people writing by hand or typewriter. - Same starting/finishing time every day. - Many writers like to go for a walk or nap after finishing the main daily task. All those things are pretty much aligned what the current research says about productivity so I dont think is just a coincidence.

onion2k 7y ago
It might be true, but it also might just tell you about the sort of writers the Paris Review chooses to interview.
- WA 7y ago
  Yeah, reminds me of the (good) advice: make writing and editing two separate processes. But yet, some writers need to fiddle with their sentences until these are perfect before they can continue writing. There are certainly approaches the majority follows. But doesn’t mean you can’t deviate from that.
  - convery 7y ago
    Ye, I often rewrite the same sentence to make it flow well or just get a nice line-ending. Found that Hemmingways motto of "write drunk, edit sober" worked well but maybe not the healthiest way =P
- gwern 7y ago
  As it happens, I've read most of the TPR interviews (and extracted ~187 preferred writing times so far), as well as a parallel interview series run by GoodReads, and looked at/run various polls: https://www.gwern.net/Morning-writing https://www.gwern.net/Morning-writing TPR interviews some rather strange and obscure writers, and overall they don't seem to be particularly anomalous. The overwhelming majority of writers, whether fiction or nonfiction, do seem to write in the morning, although it seems that younger and nonfiction types may be somewhat more likely to prefer later starts or writing in the evening. (Samuel R. Delany, for example, whose interview I read the day before yesterday, reported in 2011 that he always gets up at 5AM to do his writing now, but as a young man he started later in the morning - similar to other reports by elderly writers contrasting their youthful later-timed writing to their present early-morning writing, describing themselves as no longer having the energy to write all day, which makes sense given the lifetime shifts in chronotypes from owl to lark and the difficulty of the elderly in sleep. And shades of OP, a decent number of afternoon/evening writers say something along the lines of 'I would write in the morning-afternoon while the kids were at school, but now that they're grown, I can write later in the day.')
nsoonhui 7y ago
This more or less mirrors my days as a programmer. 3 hours coding, then gym+lunch,and 3 ( or sometimes 2) hours coding. That's it for the day.

onion2k 7y ago

It might be true, but it also might just tell you about the sort of writers the Paris Review chooses to interview.

WA 7y ago
Yeah, reminds me of the (good) advice: make writing and editing two separate processes. But yet, some writers need to fiddle with their sentences until these are perfect before they can continue writing. There are certainly approaches the majority follows. But doesn’t mean you can’t deviate from that.
- convery 7y ago
  Ye, I often rewrite the same sentence to make it flow well or just get a nice line-ending. Found that Hemmingways motto of "write drunk, edit sober" worked well but maybe not the healthiest way =P
gwern 7y ago
As it happens, I've read most of the TPR interviews (and extracted ~187 preferred writing times so far), as well as a parallel interview series run by GoodReads, and looked at/run various polls: https://www.gwern.net/Morning-writing https://www.gwern.net/Morning-writing TPR interviews some rather strange and obscure writers, and overall they don't seem to be particularly anomalous. The overwhelming majority of writers, whether fiction or nonfiction, do seem to write in the morning, although it seems that younger and nonfiction types may be somewhat more likely to prefer later starts or writing in the evening. (Samuel R. Delany, for example, whose interview I read the day before yesterday, reported in 2011 that he always gets up at 5AM to do his writing now, but as a young man he started later in the morning - similar to other reports by elderly writers contrasting their youthful later-timed writing to their present early-morning writing, describing themselves as no longer having the energy to write all day, which makes sense given the lifetime shifts in chronotypes from owl to lark and the difficulty of the elderly in sleep. And shades of OP, a decent number of afternoon/evening writers say something along the lines of 'I would write in the morning-afternoon while the kids were at school, but now that they're grown, I can write later in the day.')

nsoonhui 7y ago

This more or less mirrors my days as a programmer. 3 hours coding, then gym+lunch,and 3 ( or sometimes 2) hours coding. That's it for the day.