What's Your Ritual?

[Gritti]

What do you do when you write?  Do you have music on?  Do you only write in the morning?  Are you successful and have a carefully decorated and designed writing office (I dream of such a place....and someday I will have oh yes I will have it..) Anyway.  Personally I write graveyard shift because that's when my kids and my lady are asleep, and I like a nice quiet space.  I light a candle for some gentle light and I do not play music. 

What's your ritual?

[Darwinist]

First, I lather myself in oil, crisco usually. Then I dim the lights until its barely a flicker. I tried candles once, but the fire department won't do house calls for me anymore and the city threatened to sue if it happened again. Next, I insert the enema. This next bit is a bit messy so I'll just skip to the cleanup. So, after I finish re-coiling the garden hose and the drywall stains have set, I'm usually good to go. I stop to take a smoke, putting the butt out on my chest (which is where the crisco comes into play) and by then I have an idea of a good plot, subplot, characters, and scene.

On a serious side, never understood rituals. Seemed like they were just one extra step of procrastination. To each their own, if they work for you... but a simple shut of the door is all I need. And the enema. But that's another story.

[LizW65]

I do most of my writing at night, after dinner.  First I need to make sure the chickens are closed into their coop, then I pull the laptop table up to my bed and get going.  I generally start out with a few games of solitaire, just to relax me and get me in the "zone".  No music--dead silence is best, but I can tolerate a little background noise if it's not too distracting.  Earplugs help.

[Gritti]

I'm gonna have to try that crisco thing...I'll skip the enema though.

[BobForPresident]

I hate to admit it, but I do my best stuff when I'm at work. 

[Gritti]

I hate to admit it, but I do my best stuff when I'm at work. 

So you add suspense to your life while writing...interesting.  I'd like to try that but I work outside all day without access to a computer.  I carry a pad around with me in case I get any ideas, but since I don't have any supervisors I can't get caught.

[Kris_W]

I get up at 4:00 AM whether I want to be awake or not - my Muse keeps stealing my internal clock. I write raw text - new stuff, not editing or re-writes - for a couple hours or until the noises in the house and city begin and I actually do wake up. Then I eat, exercise, get cleaned up and have a fairly normal day. After dinner I edit or plan things out, and most nights I go to bed early so I can do it again the next day.

Getting up at 4:00 AM was never MY idea of living the writer's life. Bleah!

Most of the stuff like special music, incense or anal retentive desk organization is left for the editing stage where it has greater amusement value.

[Gritti]

I get up at 4:00 AM whether I want to be awake or not - my Muse keeps stealing my internal clock. I write raw text - new stuff, not editing or re-writes - for a couple hours or until the noises in the house and city begin and I actually do wake up. Then I eat, exercise, get cleaned up and have a fairly normal day. After dinner I edit or plan things out, and most nights I go to bed early so I can do it again the next day.

Getting up at 4:00 AM was never MY idea of living the writer's life. Bleah!

Most of the stuff like special music, incense or anal retentive desk organization is left for the editing stage where it has greater amusement value.

Bravo on being the ultimate morning person.  I've been doing the graveyard shift myself and I'm finding it hard to burn the candle at both ends too many nights a week.

I thing every writer's desk must be a lovely whirlwind of notes , papers, and other junk.  A photographer could do a lovely series on writer's desks.

[Kris_W]

Bravo on being the ultimate morning person. 

No, no - I'm not a morning person. My idiot Muse is!

[meg_evonne]

Kris, please don't let my own muse know that via the ethernet or whatever! 

What neat ideas.  It was a fun read.

As for me, nonsense on TV or Heart and Soul or whatever on that Spa music station, re-read and edit the day before's work..sometimes I go farther back for a hard scrubbing of several chapters, then my brain cells are deep in the story and I start new stuff that I've spent a few days organizing in my mind.  Then I don't stop, despite the lateness of the hour, until I'm done with that scene.  Getting ready to sleep, I'm planning the next scene for the next session.

I confess that I read and write in complete oblivion of the real world.  My five year old daughter refused to go on a vacation with me unless I promised to not read anything. In my best all day, all night writing event I awoke from my deep writing coma to find out that I'd been writing to the DVD loop track for one of the Gray's Anatomy Series.  That sort of scared me.  I mean hours and hours of a 30 second loop of repeat theme music?  Shouldn't that kill my brain?  :-)

Please refer to my new thread, "Hello lurkers!" 

[Kris_W]

I don't use a 30 second loop, but occasionally I play a piece of classical music - over and over and over and over and over for hours. It's generally more like a 30 minute loop. At least I use headphones, which keeps my family and neighbors from killing me.  

When I put on music it's usually  because I'm into writing but it is too noisy to write where I am. The music blocks out more annoying sounds. I guess that's almost anti-listening?

[Kali]

I can't write in silence.  I need music or the TV in the other room, something to ruffle the air a little.  And of course if I'm out and about on my laptop I need music to prevent other peoples' chatter from distracting me.  I'm a hopeless eavesdropper.

Plus, sometimes if I get stuck a piece of music can trigger a direction for a scene.  It's happened more often than you'd think.

[Kid Longshot]

I write on my lappytop and I need media player or some musical noise on. Doesn't hurt my writing, it just makes me comfortable. Classical helps me with schoolwork, but I've found any kind of stuff helps me just churn out reasonable results. I've tried putting together a soundtrack for the book I'm writing, but that provides more distractions than it does assistance. I still keep the soundtrack for inspiration factor elsewhere, but it seems that the rule of thumb for me is if it's peaceful music, I write best and only slightly suffer if I listen to my media library on my computer. So, I listen to my favorite artists and Celtic Spa CD when I write. Other than that, I'm set to write.

[Gritti]

Thank you Kali and Kid Longshot for representing all those writers out there that do like noise while they work.  I knew there had to be plenty 'o writers who at least needed some random background noise while they write.  I remember that I needed the TV on when I was in college doing my class work.  I'm not sure what's changed from then to now, but now I need quiet.  Probably has something to do with my kids being hyper and loud all day long.  When it's finally just me at night the quiet is refreshing.

But as I always say to each his or her own.

[Kid Longshot]

Aw, you're welcome! =^.^=