Once, when asked about his writing routine, award-winning writer, E.L. Doctorow, said:

“Here’s how it goes:
I’m up at the stroke of 10 or 10:30. I have breakfast and read the papers, and then it’s lunchtime. Then maybe a little nap after lunch and out to the gym, and before I know it, it’s time to have a drink.”

Here is D.L. Doctorow’s bio. It’s definitely longer than 25 words and doesn’t at all sound like the bio of someone who lounges through the day.

As I’ve shared before, I write in the mornings, Monday thru Friday, from around 9 until 12:30 and then I do marketing in the afternoons, which involves querying agents and/or publishers, typing in changes to revised manuscripts, and promoting Seeking Sara Summers. If I was a drinker, I’d definitely drink in the afternoons.

What about you? What is your writing routine? As always, I’d love to hear from you.

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Author website.

According to Writer’s Almanac, Maya Angelou still writes on yellow legal pads.

She said:

I see a yellow pad, and my knees get weak, and I salivate.

She also said:

The writer has to take the most used, most familiar objects — nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs — ball them together and make them bounce, turn them a certain way and make people get into a romantic mood; and another way, into a bellicose mood. I’m most happy to be a writer.

And this:

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

How do you write? Yellow legal pad? Laptop computer? Do you have the agony of an untold story inside of you? As always, I’d love to hear from you.

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www.susangabriel.com

An internet friend of mine (and kind reader of my book) just got back from a wonderful vacation during which she visited some incredible bookstores.  Anyone who loves writing, books and bookstores might appreciate these photographs. Let me know what you think and please leave Elena a comment at her hubpages. 

Here is a sample photograph that Elena emailed me to give you a quick taste. Enjoy!

How often do you get one of those truly great ideas in life and you forget to write it down? So many good ideas, even epiphanies, come to us at inconvenient times: the middle of the night, the middle of a meeting, in the shower, or whenever. Our muse has a mind and a schedule of her own that doesn’t always respect or honor our timing of things.

As Sam Horn, author of Pop! Stand Out in Any Crowd, says about our muse, “All it asks is that when it gives us an idea, we write it down. As long as we do, it’ll keep coming around.” I have borrowed her phrase, Muse It Or Lose It, for this article. She also has a section in her book called: Ink It When You Think It.

One of my latest manuscripts, currently being shopped around by my agent, is called Wildflower. I had not planned on writing this novel. In fact, I swore to myself, as someone born and raised in the southern United States, that I would never, ever, write southern fiction. I had enough scary, weird characters in my gene pool. I didn’t feel the need to explore all the dynamics in a novel. But never say never, right?

In the middle of the night, several years ago now, a voice began speaking in my imagination. It was the main character of this novel I swore I would never write, telling me her story. In fact, she was practically dictating the book to me. I have had enough experience with characters and ideas showing up that I knew that if I didn’t get up and start writing it down that I would lose it. In fact, this character might even find some other writer to tell her story to. So even though I could have really used that night’s sleep and the year or so that followed where I was carefully working and reworking her story, I feel good that I took responsibility for it.

I know all this sounds a little crazy, but I’m southern; I feel like I’m allowed. I’m also an ex-shrink so I know I’m not dealing with mental illness, just the process of creativity. There is something very mysterious about how stories and ideas are born. After 14 years of writing, I’m almost convinced that they choose us, instead of us choosing them.

Mystery aside, and on the purely practical end of things, it’s important to write things down. Anne Lamott, devotes a whole chapter in her book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, to 3×5 index cards. She is never without them. Of course this doesn’t work for everybody. You may prefer a note pad or want to use your Blackberry or have the memory of an elephant and never need to write anything down. But it is crucial to take action and claim it.

When you get an idea for an article or a story, or you start hearing a stream of dialogue in your imagination, you are being given a gift. Think twice before you turn down this gift because it may not return. I truly believe that if you honor your muse, your muse will honor you.

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There’s a great article in the New York Times this morning by Michiko Kakutani that I thought I would pass on to you in case you haven’t seen it. It talks about how Barack Obama’s love of language and reading has helped him to communicate and shaped his sense of the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/books/19read.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all

Our 44th President, who will be sworn in within hours, has been seen carrying books of poetry (as well as non-fiction) and as the article states, wrote some “very bad poetry” (his words) when he was younger and even considered taking up the life of a novelist. I find it heartening that our new president is a lover of words and recognizes the power of language.

Enjoy! And, as always, let me know what you think.

I am new to the blog world and have spent a good amount of time over the last couple of months studying successful blogs.

I stumbled upon a blog the other day that I found fascinating. It is on a website called www.ThePioneerWoman.com and is written by a woman named Ree who describes herself as “a desperate housewife” who lives in the country and channels Lucille Ball and Ethel Merman. She is a transplant from Los Angeles, where she wore black pumps to work every day, ate sushi and treated herself to pedicures. Then, she met and fell in love with a rugged cattle rancher in Oklahoma who she calls “Marlboro Man.” She’s raising and home-schooling their four kids, who she lovingly calls her “punks.”

In her own words:

“My days are spent wrangling children, chipping dried manure from boots, washing jeans, and frying calf nuts. I have no idea how I got here…but you know what? I love it. Don’t tell anyone.”

The Pioneer Woman, a.k.a, Ree, is funny and a great photographer and has a following that is astounding in the blog world. On a post last month where she was grieving the loss of their beloved dog, Nell, she received nearly 2,000 comments containing condolences (one of them from me!).

Considering I have maybe eight readers at this point (granted I’ve only been blogging for 2 months and she’s been going for several years), her following of loyal readers is something to aspire to.

What makes her blog and website a success? I think it is her genuineness, her willingness to share the ups and downs of her life and her humor. That, and these days, she lives what is considered an atypical life on a working ranch.

With that in mind, I would love to hear from any readers (yes, all eight of you) about what I can do to improve this blog. (Please note: if you subscribe through Feedburner, you have to go to the site to post comments: www.susangabriel.com/blog ) Your comments help me know what subjects resonate with you and will determine what I write about in the future.

As a writer, of books and blog, I am nothing without you, the reader. Please know I am grateful and let me hear from you!