How Do You Write Best...

Toni Morrison says: "I always get up and make a cup of coffee while it is still dark-it must be dark—and then I drink the coffee and watch the light come... Writers all devise ways to approach that place where they expect to make the contact, where they become the conduit, or where they engage in this mysterious process. For me, light is the signal in the transition. It's not being in the light, it's being there before it arrives. It enables me, in some sense." From The Writer's Almanac, February 18, 2005.

My best writing occurs when I am just coming out of a meditative nap. A place where I let go of everything---discovered this being lulled in a hammock strung across my tiny studio. I like to be lying down, with a notebook and a pencil on my lap, or my tiny pocket pc, something private, that only I can see, and drifting dreamily in and out of stillness. It is in this deeply relaxed state that images begin adding their vitality to what I am writing about... It is in this quiet state of mind that my imagination has most freedom... And I have learnt to trust the flow of words, even if they don't 'pull together'; when I come back later, I find nuggets in the tumble of jewels that I can take out, polish and wear...


How about you...? What state of mind do you find best for your creativity and how do you evoke that...?

What's your ritual as a writer?