I am a creature of habit. As soon as I was able to establish my writing habits — which are to start work in the morning and write until hungry, then again in the afternoon until tired — I stuck to this routine most of the days of the week. Once I had learned to compose as I wrote — to make corrections as I went along with a crayon or marking pencil — I would average eight to twelve pages a morning. In time I learned that random breaks — walking around, having a smoke, saving the house from woodpeckers — were creatively helpful. They jogged the mind from its rut, resolved impasses, opened up unforeseen vistas. Since all of my books are closely related, thirty or forty pages into a new book, I would begin to have glimpses of where it was going, and what would follow.
The Art of Fiction #125 [The Paris Review #120, Fall 1991]
Use the link below to read an excerpt of the 1991 WRIGHT MORRIS interview posted in the online archive of The Paris Review:
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