Anna Staniszewski

They say people are creatures of habit and I’m beginning to suspect that this might be especially true of writers. Although I’m able to write pretty much anywhere, I think I’m the most productive when I’m at home and in my routine: drink some coffee/tea, check my email, read a few blogs I’m following, and then get to work. Usually I work in my home office, but the past few weeks have been too hot to spend a significant amount of time there, so I’ve been using my husband’s laptop and lounging on the couch instead. It took a day or two to get used to this, but now it feels familiar enough that I can get some work done.

It’s funny how familiar my surroundings have to be in order for me to be able to really put myself into the worlds I’m writing about, which are anything but comfortable. I wonder if this goes beyond habit and steps into the realm of the hypnotic which I’ve heard is part of the creative process. What do I mean by hypnotic? When your body is occupied and your mind is somewhere else, that’s when some of the best ideas pop into your head (when you’re driving, showering, etc.) I wonder if writing habits are a way of setting ourselves up for this self-induced hypnosis: everything is arranged in such a way that we can detach ourselves from the regular world and leave our minds free to wander.