For nine years I worked as an arts journalist. This gave me a great chance to talk to a lot of musicians and filmmakers about the creative process. Too much, apparently, since my editor told me to stop writing articles about how musicians made the album and more on what would publicise the release.
During one interview with a prominent English folk singer, she explained how she wrote the songs in her share house, usually at her kitchen table while her housemates were in bed. Her most recent album had been written almost in order of the songs on the release. I told her how I’d recently read that Nick Cave kept usual office hours and wrote then. Her reaction was disbelief.
“You can’t write like that!”
It works for Cave because he’s found the way that works best for him. Starting is the hard part, he's said in interviews. So if he finishes writing one album one day then he will start another screenplay or novel or poetry the next day. This method is how he keeps momentum flowing. Not every writer wants that type of schedule.
Find the process that works for you, in the time that you have each day. When you put the time in to your process, the words will come.
William Carlos Williams wrote many of his poems on his prescription pad between seeing patients – that explains the length of so many! Truman Capote wrote while reclined in bed. Elmore Leonard wrote early in the morning, not letting himself make a pot of coffee until he’d finished the first page.
None of these are the single way to do it. Adopting these does not mean you will write like those writers. They can, of course, be ideas of strategies that work for you.
All roads might lead to Rome, but you still have to find the road that works for you.
Finding Your Own Road