Elizabeth Gilbert: How I Write

With her new novel, The Signature of All Things, getting rave reviews, the Eat, Pray, Love author is ready to confess that she doesn’t meditate—and she has a chewing gum addiction.

by Noah Charney Oct 2, 2013 - The Daily Beast

NC: Describe your morning routine.
EG: Okay, well my morning routine on a day when I’m writing is very different from my routine on a day I’m not writing. So when I’m writing, my routine begins the night before. I had a meditation teacher who used to say that your meditation starts the night before. What time you go to bed is really important. When I’m writing, I tend to go to bed around 9 o’clock. That way I can get up by 4:30 or 5. My favorite time to write is between 5 to 10 a.m., because that way you have the total silence before the world starts chasing you down. By 10 the phone is ringing, emails are coming in, all sorts of things need your care and attention. So I like those secret morning hours. If I’m really gunning, toward the end of project, I might write past noon, but that would be rare.

Author Elizabeth Gilbert in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on August 15, 2013. (Rick Madonik/Toronto Star, via Getty)

What is a distinctive habit or affectation of yours? Any magic hats?

What kind of talismanic devices, hmm. I used to have a pair of glasses, without prescription lenses—they just made me feel more intelligent. Somewhere along the way I lost them!  I don’t know what that means, if you lose your fake intelligence glasses … I wore those for years. I wrote my first two books in those. I needed a boost, when I’d look in the mirror I’d think, Writer. These days? I use index cards for book projects. I use a method I learned when I was 14, in Western Civilization class, cataloguing ideas on index cards, in shoe boxes. My newest book has five shoeboxes full of organized index cards lined up. Without them I don’t think I’d have any idea how to write a book. Ooh, and when I finish writing each day, to give myself a boost, I stop in the middle of a sentence. I heard Hemingway did that. When you sit down the next day, you begin immediately able to produce something, without that terrible vacuum. It gives you a sense of momentum.

Anything you like to snack on while writing?
I chew gum ferociously. It’s obnoxious, and another reason why I have to be alone. I chew Trident Tropical Twist Sugarless. Everyone is repulsed by it, but I love it! When I’m writing I’m on, like, a pack a day. The non-smoker’s equivalent of smoking. It activates my brain. I read a study not long ago that chewing actually does activate your brain. It produces some sort of cosmic, seismic activity.

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