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In this online exclusive we ask authors to share books, art, music, writing prompts, films—anything and everything—that has inspired them in their writing. We see this as a place for writers to turn to for ideas that will help feed their creative process.
“After a day of work in the grey cubicle farm on Michigan Avenue, coming home to work on a novel can feel like an indulgence. It takes practice and patience to tune out the snotty e-mail from a coworker that sent the office atwitter, or to forget about the cockroaches that appeared one morning
“I had to stop myself from reading ‘Writing Habits of Famous Authors’ articles. Such glamorized routines create unrealistic expectations the same way beauty magazines do for young women. The practice I’d recommend is refusing to compare yourself
“The balled up, impossible-to-unkink tangle of pain and joy that is family fuels a great deal of my writing. The great Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz reminds us: ‘When a writer is born into a family, that family is finished.’ I never want my writing to finish anything. Rather, I want it to start things.
“Reading, at its best, is about getting inside someone else’s skin. Writing, for me, is about getting further into mine. The novelist Max Frisch said of his own writing: ‘What shocks me is rather the discovery that I have been concealing my life from myself.’ I write for that same discovery
“I’ll write ten more then go to the falcon. The falcon is my code name for Millennium Park in Chicago. I work across the street from it, and hide in it regularly. I write product copy for a large retailer. I write about power tools and mattresses, sometimes luggage. The volume is vast and comforting: an ocean of words, bold headlines lapping placidly at the sand.
“Writing is about getting to a place of deep mediation. The writer’s job is, at a fundamental level, all about finding the habits that will get you there—somehow. Human beings are, fortunately, trainable animals. We can train ourselves, through habit, to access the parts of the mind that lead to great creative work.
“I recommend taking advice with a grain of low-sodium salt (better for your heart), and being suspicious of anyone who makes writing seem too easy, too hard, or too sexy. The reality is usually in the boring, nougat middle. Done correctly, writing looks like a person staring at a table.
“First of all, it’s okay not to write. Most writers are highly disciplined, equipped with a demanding, inner CEO. We tie our identities, our sense of worth, and our happiness to writing well. Not writing feels terrible, unless you consider that it too is part of the process. The muse is sly. Sometimes she goes into hiding.
“I’m a doodler. This has never gone over well. In high school, it convinced teachers I wasn’t really listening, and in my various jobs over the years, it has convinced bosses that some part of me is still in high school. Which is true, obviously, but that’s hardly the point. The point is knowing what works for you.
“Over the last seven years, as I have worked to write and revise my first book and then claw a second one out of my gut, I’ve heard too many times that any successful writing practice will involve a minimum daily word count, good and round, or a slavish devotion to page and screen, no matter the quality of what comes.
