Learning to be a Writer: Maya Angelou

A Year Long Project. Month One.

I am struggling. I’m homesick for Nevada. I can’t get used to the cold in Pennsylvania. I have this big old Victorian house, but I’m finding myself spending 20 hours a day sitting up in my bed working or sleeping — but not getting as much done as I want to (or need to.)

My writing habit is solid. I write every single day. New fiction. Blog posts. This is the one thing in my life that I have a solid handle on.

But the ritual behind my habit? It needs work. Big time.

I am fascinated by the rituals of people who have mastered something I want to master. Especially other writers.

Especially genius writers who have reached a level I likely never will.

I have this idea. What if I research the writing habits of these genius writers, one a month, and break them down into something I can understand. Then follow their example for a week and build what works for me into my own habit for the rest of the month.

I’m going to start tomorrow, for the month of February 2019, with Maya Angelou.

Here’s how she describes her writing day in a 1983 interview with Claudia Tate, that was reprinted in Mason Currey’s book Daily Rituals, which is a wonderful book if you haven’t read it.

I usually get up at about 5:30, and I’m ready to have coffee by 6, usually with my husband. He goes off to his work around 6:30, and I go off to mine. I keep a hotel room in which I do my work — a tiny, mean room with just a bed, and sometimes, if I can find it, a face basin. I keep a dictionary, a Bible, a deck of cards and a bottle of sherry in the room. I try to get there around 7, and I work until 2 in the afternoon. If the work is going badly, I stay until 12:30. If it’s going well, I’ll stay as long as it’s going well. It’s lonely, and it’s marvelous. I edit while I’m working. When I come home at 2, I read over what I’ve written that day, and then try to put it out of my mind. I shower, prepare dinner, so that when my husband comes home, I’m not totally absorbed in my work. We have a semblance of a normal life. We have a drink together and have dinner. Maybe after dinner I’ll read to him what I’ve written that day. He doesn’t comment. I don’t invite comments from anyone but my editor, but hearing it aloud is good. Sometimes I hear the dissonance; then I try to straighten it out in the morning.

You can hear Angelou speaking about her ritual in this 1988 interview with George Plimpton in The Paris Review. (I was entranced.)

She says to Plimpton that she felt that when she went into her hotel room all her beliefs were suspended.

In that interview she also says that she kept a Bible near her when she writes, because she loves the language of it. She sometimes read it out loud to hear the music of the language. And she wrote on a yellow legal pad.

She also said that she wanted no art or other decoration around her. No distractions.

And this: “I try to keep home very pretty and I can’t work in a pretty surrounding. It throws me.”

Here’s a breakdown of Maya Angelou’s ritual:

She woke up very early.
She had distinct writing hours, which she seemed fastidious about.
She had a beautiful home, but she couldn’t work there, so she rented a spare hotel room and worked there instead.
She worked 7 or 8 hours a day — from 6:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. (Or 12:30 p.m. if she’s struggling.) So, a full-time job.
She read beautiful language to inspire herself.
She wrote by hand, on yellow legal pads, laying across her hotel bed, propped on her elbows.
She edits while she writes.
She drank sherry — sometimes early, sometimes a little later.
She read what she wrote out loud at the end of the day, but did not expect or want feedback. It just helped her to hear her reading out loud.
The next day she’d work on what sounded wrong to her.

I can’t afford to rent a hotel room for a week — I’ll have to figure out a different way to recreate the effect of going somewhere else to work. I’m a morning person by nature, but waking up to an alarm clock is, for me, an instant creativity killer. I’m going to have to give waking up at 5:30 a.m. a hard pass. And I’m not a drinker.

The one thing that really feels like it would be a struggle is that she edits while she writes. I don’t have many strict writing rules for myself, but no editing while writing is one of them. I don’t do it. Ever.

Here is how I think I can adapt Angelou’s ritual for the next week.

Wake up earlier by going to bed earlier.
Start working within an hour of waking up.
Have a distinct work space that is not my own bedroom.
Remove distractions. Television is a big one for me.
Have distinct work hours. I think 8 to 3 would work. It seems to me that it was the constancy that mattered to her.
Read out loud from the Bible. (Or maybe other beautifully written words?)
Write fiction by hand on a yellow legal pad. This will require a separate step of transcribing, but I’m willing to try it for a week.
Read out loud what I’ve written that day. I’m not sure I can rope anyone into listening, but I can try. Otherwise, I’ll just read out loud for myself.
(Deep breath.) Edit while I write. I’m not sure what this will look like. Maybe first thing in the morning I’ll transcribe what I hand wrote the day before and do some editing in that process.
(Another deep breath.) Revise what didn’t sound right the night before when I read it out loud.

My goal is to put this ritual to work for a week — let’s say the first Monday to Sunday week of the month — and then see what sticks. Then incorporate that into my regular writing habit for the rest of the month. I’ll pick another writer’s ritual to examine the next month.

So, I’ll start my new Maya Angelou-inspired ritual on Monday, February 4, 2019. I’ll write again on the next Sunday to report back how it worked and what I think I’ll stick with for the rest of the month. And again at the end of the month when I’m done.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if at the end of a year, I’ve developed my own style that works just right for me?

Here’s my secret weapon for sticking with whatever your thing is.

Shaunta Grimes is a writer and teacher. She is an out-of-place Nevadan living in Northwestern PA with her husband, three superstar kids, two dementia patients, a good friend, Alfred the cat, and a yellow rescue dog named Maybelline Scout. She’s on Twitter @shauntagrimes and is the author of Viral Nation and Rebel Nation and the upcoming novel The Astonishing Maybe. She is the original Ninja Writer.