Writing Rituals

I'm reading Bruce Holland Rogers' wonderful book, Word Work right now (hard as heck to come by, but if you can find it, I recommend it), and in the current chapter he's talking about writing rituals, or more precisely, pre-writing rituals. The things we do to get ourselves into the right headspace for writing, so that we don't spend the entire day writing emails, doing laundry, or dusting the tops of all the doorframes just because we haven't done it in a while.

Some pre-writing rituals, although practiced by well-known writers, are not as effective as others, or at least not for every writer. For instance, some writers like to have a drink. Or drinks. This one wouldn't work for me. While I'm not averse to a glass of wine once in a while, it doesn't do much for my writing ability. I'm what you might call a cheap drunk. Likewise long walks only make me want to stay outside, or just keep walking until all my writing time is eaten up.

Years ago, I used to play "a" game of computer mahjongg before every writing session. I would tell myself it was just to relax, to bridge the mental gap between dealing with things in real life and dealing with things in writing life. And at first, it was. After a while, though, I realized that I would not just play "a" game. I would keep playing until I won. What had started as a harmless ritual had turned into a time-devouring habit.

Right now I don't think I have any real rituals, although I was mulling this over through the day today and I thought of a good one that I'd like to establish. Tidy my desk. Now, that sounds like it might be one of those doorframe-dusting things, but if I were doing it every day--well, there would never be that much to do, would there? And I do seem to work better in a tidy space. Admittedly, it could pile up if I wasn't writing every day, but that's also a goal that I'd like to make a habit--daily writing. And with NaNoWriMo coming up, when I will be writing every day, it seems like a good opportunity to try out the desk-tidying thing. Of course, I will have to clean it up in order to start. Luckily there's still a week left before November 1st...