What's Your Writing Ritual, Your Musts, The Candle You Must Burn?

For me, I just need a source: computer, paper.... nothing else seems to matter. Sure, a comfy place to sit always helps, but I can be anywhere... the auction, the doctor's office, the bed... and sometimes I wish my brain could just record my thoughts for times when I am unable to write, but the words keep coming.

i haven't figured it out yet. i know i write easier on a keyboard than longhand because the sight of my own handwriting makes me self-conscious and overly critical of the content. poems tend to flow when i am in crisis or pain, when my heart is seizing (which seems more and more often). essays and letters when i am feeling contrary. i think i need to change, try some different things, force myself to find a routine/ritual...any suggestions?
"frozen crap" - that's good.

all i need is inspiration and a computer. pretty unromantic. i have to type it because the words just come flowing out to fast for me to write. i totally dig the ritual...but then my inspiration gets all caught up in the ritual....and then in prevnting my babies from spilling the ritual on the floor, or igniting the environment...but from there of course exsists the possibility of more inspiration...tee hee

for long writing, got to be a keyboard, yes, words squirting out of my fingers straight from the brain, go as fast as you can and fix it up later, like ann lamott says, shitty first drafts, count on the music of your brain, the music of your heart, to make the flow--and in my purse, in my trusted tiny pocket notebook, the little thoughts that come when I least expect it, when I hear from the corner of my ear and grin with recognition.... :)

maddymuse, you are blessed, indeed! Imagine the novel of all those lost words, lost moments when the words were faster than your hand!

Amy, oh I love writing in a journal too. Mine has a cat in space on the cover, it's a kid's journal, and I write all the customer conversations I have so I won't forget! And candles, that's so sensuous! You really connect with the earth, girl.

mona, I'm just like you that way - I write best when I'm down and out and feeling all kinds of crappy, LOL! I think I started the counting backwards when I was stuck one day. And it worked!

Heather, you are another of the blessed by the lack of ritual! And having the non-ness of a ritual is just as romantic as having one, I think.

Lydia, yeah, I gotta have a keyboad too when the words come fast. I wonder how many of us carry notebooks? I tried using a pocket recorder a few months ago but gave it to my kids after one day.

I don't have a set ritual. As long as it's quiet, I'm good to write.

Paul, it's a question for the audience. What's your writing ritual?

Sara, it's so fascinating how some people are good to go right out the gate and some need props and moonlight. I wonder why we get the way we get?

One of my favorite things is to light a candle and have it burning on my desk; in a votive holder, usually yellow, orange or clear. It seems to help call and keep my muse. Music is a must.

I most often get by just sitting at the computer with a cup of coffee and some background noise (music, TV or radio). I also occasionally enjoy writing and sketching at a cafe. My muse is pretty easy. She'll dance to almost anything, almost anytime, almost anywhere. I'm quite convinced that she feels slighted. I don't dance with her often enough.

Nice topic. Thanks.

Bill, what a wonderful muse you must have! Low-maintenance, ha ha! Candles inspire the muse, draw her near. I'm glad you found her.

Great question.

Maybe I need a ritual. The human who passes for my muse is always after me to write moreandmoreandmore --- but the words only flow when they flow; I try not to question them too much, just record and edit later.

Keyboard preferred, cat-less if possible but I can type through fur if necessary. Scraps of paper and a dull pencil will do when the mood is really upon me. I also wish for a thoughtwave recorder; my best words seem to ripple when I am driving, or doing something that makes recording them impossible!

I do not often write. When I do, I require absolute silence. Even small noises make it difficult. I do not have an easy muse. In fact, I do not think I have one at all. This is interesting, reading these responses. Good topic.

I have to have`the kids in bed! I do desperately want to have some rituals going soon! nice article.

loretta, you gotta grab your muse, let his words wash through you. A muse knows what a muse knows! Don't dis the muse! LOL!!! And yeah, animals take up keyboard space (as do my young boys at times), but somehow they add to the chaos of the piece. A thoughtwave recorder! We gotta make one! We'd make millions!!

Karol, you should write more! I think you are a much better writer than you think. If you start writing, a muse will come.

Del, LMAO!!!! I do best when my boys are in bed, too. But they've learned that my bathrobe + headphones = Don'T Bug Mom!

I love to read books about writing by writers I respect, and for the most part they say the same thing--don't wait for the muse! Writing is a kind of exercise, they say--find the time of day that is most consistently available for you, and block it out for writing. When that time comes, go where you go and do what you do, and eventually the muse will come on your terms.

That doesn't mean you don't need the notebook, of course... ;)

I can and do write, anytime and anywhere. Unfortuntely, I am not so easily pulled into editing and cleaning up what I have written when it just pours out so much of my mused brilliance sits in folders or on computer disks waiting for its day in the spotlight.

Zenith, that's such a smart idea. I keep meaning to stick a notpad by the bed and NEVER do.

Lydia, you're taking away our excuses!! LMAO!!! Yeah, you speak the truth, girl.

Sandy, gotta watch out for those word moths. They're attracted to the brilliance, the light hidden in notebooks and computer disks... they'll steal your thunder, crunch your words to bits if you forget them!

Morning works best -- and that's about as ritual as I get.

Pot bellied pig, how totally cool Birdie. Great post too. My fav hangout is in my office with my aussie shepherd Spuds next to me. Usually got a fan goin back here, and my library just around the corner. I got a big ole jar of sun tea brewing on the deck that I intend to ice down later with some lemon and honey.

Before I started to write for a living, upward of 60 years ago, no scrap of paper was safe from my unfettered verbal regurgitation. Later, when I discovered that I could actually make money doing the easiest thing in the world, putting words on paper, I just needed a place to sit and enough light to see by. Eventually, however, after my third book was published and I was labeled "an author", I got snotty about it and wouldn't write anything for free. The writing process went from joyous obsession to slogging job, and as soon as I had a steady enough royalty income, I quit. I still composed the occasional poem to accompany Christmas and birthday gifts, maintained a years-long letter correspondence with a couple of friends, and still replied "writer" when asked my occupation, but if the phrase "writers write" is true, I was a fraud.

And then came the computer. Email! Message boards! Blogging! There were people out there who could and would read my stuff, even if it didn't come with a bookjacket! Suddenly, the Blog Goddess Cyberia began to visit nightly before I fall asleep, and now drags me out of bed and plops me into the computer chair seven days a week, flowing through my mind and out of my fingers, telling me things I didn't know I knew. Inspiration? Questions like this, (I'll be writing a long blog on this subject shortly); news items that amuse or infuriate me; memory shapshots; the goings-on around me here on Redneck Lane; life. And writers like you, Birdie, who have reminded me of the sheer delight of feeling this glorious surge of cosmic consciousness pouring from my fingers to the screen for all the world to see. Thank you for re-ignitiing my dying embers.

can you send me a pic of your frankie - I think is the name of your pig but I so want a picture of that little guy.

Diana, I'm a morning person, too! But with kids and pets, I have to take what I can get. I would choose morning over any other time of the day for a writing practice.

Paul, that sounds like a restful and inviting space!

Ruth, what a great comment! You are alive! I can feel from your words that you're about to give birth to a tornado of awareness! It's gonna suck us all in - you just wait and see!

Carol, I think I posted a couple of pix of him along with my Frankie stories here. I'll have to take some more and post 'em! : )

Honestly, my writing ritual is to find confict. Sounds strange to say, but if I see or read of an idea that I don't / can't /won't accept or understand, then I need to be able to figure out why it is that I don't understand it.
So I throw everything I have at it....to disprove it, study it, analyze it, question it.....I write about, paint about, and compose about that frustration......not because I hate ideas that are contrary to my own....but because I need to learn.
And if the idea holds up under pressure, on it's own, and is provable, or at least likely, despite my objections, then I just have to accept it. It becomes something I respect and love, and therfore a permanent part of my writing, and myself. But if the idea crumbles under pressure, or open analysys, then I refuse to accept it, and I move on, hopefully more educated about the premise that weak ideas are abase on. This process of course, only applies to ideas, and personal growth....open questioning of opposing ideas is healthy....violent opposition is always wrong.
This process is a huge release for me. It's like wrestling, losing weight, or practising at something difficult, like math or a musical instrument. There is always struggle, but if you persevere, you change your own pre-conceptions. Sometimes you change someone elses. This allows you access to a thousand other styles, concepts, and perspectives that you never would have thought of as valid before. And you end up owing that growth to the one you so energetically disagreed with.
Because ideas that are different from your own are all the more a part of you if they survive the process. Then you have faith in them.

Mike, you have a very active muse, she must be on call 24/7!!

Audrey, if I had to write things for others, I bet I would fall into that category, too. I am that way with everything else in life.

Jeff, that's such a thoughtful comment. Your muse is a wreslter, a goddess witha poisoned arrow. I'm going to have to read your work, you've intrigued me.

My best writing comes after a dreamlike state....I get a memory, from a dream or a spark, something I saw that day, something that reminded me of something, a spectral visitation. I have to let the dream mull a while...the images simmer and I try to spin out the details in my mind until I really remember it well. For that kind of writing I try to find music to fit the vintage of the memory...I collect cds like some people collect postcards. A scented candle...grapefruit, green apple, clean linen, or lavender are the top of the list, I make them myself sometimes too. And a drink at hand....I mix my own blackberry soda, or boysenberry black tea with cream, or something from my crazy soda collection, or in this sticky summer heat an Arnold Palmer, thats half lemonade and half iced tea. The advantage of the computer is the backlit monitor, that and the candle light are enough, for sketchbook writing I need a lamp with a dimmer as well. If the idea has steeped well enough before I start to write then the old ghosts will come out and talk to me while I type....I try to keep writing as long as they'll stay.

It seems writing from my own experience yields the best results. Even the most bland events, written vividly, are gobbled up by the reader (or so they tell me, and they are the experts, not me). When I take something that make a big impression on me, and write it out as honestly as I can, that seems to be my best work.