Let’s be honest: how many of us have stared at a blank page, waiting for divine “inspiration” to strike? Pop culture and romanticized biographies love to sell creativity as a mystical gift, a lightning bolt that hits geniuses at random. It’s an intimidating idea. If you weren’t “born with it,” you’re lost.
But if you ask the women who wrote some of history’s most impactful books, they’d probably find that idea lazy. For them, creativity isn’t a gift received. It’s a work shift. It’s more discipline than chance.
We looked at the routines of three of the most influential writers of our time and found that their “genius” looks a lot like what most of us call “hard work”.
The Architect of the Void: Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou, whose poetry and prose seem to flow with a wisdom that transcends the mundane, had a surprisingly sterile work process.
Her reality was this: she would wake up at 5:30 AM, have coffee with her husband, and by 7 AM, she would check into a simple, cheap local hotel room that she rented monthly.
Why a “shabby” hotel, as she described it? Angelou was explicit about it: she couldn’t write at home. Beautiful, comfortable environments were, for her, a distraction. She needed a void.
In the room, she forbade the cleaning staff from entering and allowed nothing personal. The only items allowed were a bed, a table, a dictionary, a Bible, a deck of cards (for solitaire when her mind stalled), and a bottle of sherry. She wrote there, by hand on yellow legal pads, until 2 PM.
The process continued at home: she would take a shower, prepare dinner, and only then, read aloud to her husband what she had produced. She never edited on the same day she wrote. Angelou didn’t wait for the muse. She created an impersonal “pressure chamber” and a two-step process (creation and editing) where the muse had no choice but to show up.
The 4 AM Professional: Toni Morrison
If Angelou needed space, Toni Morrison needed a time she didn’t have.
The woman who won a Nobel for complex and transformative novels like Beloved or The Bluest Eye built her literary career in the cracks of life. While writing her first novels, Morrison was a single mother of two young children and a full-time editor at Random House, where she spent all day editing other people’s work.
She didn’t have the luxury of waiting for inspiration. Her routine was an act of pure discipline: Morrison woke up every day at 4 AM.
She used those dark, quiet hours, before the world woke up, to write. She stated it wasn’t just for the silence, but because, at that hour, she was mentally “less encumbered” by the day’s demands and the voices of the other authors she edited. It was in this morning ritual that she wrote her first novel, The Bluest Eye.
Morrison didn’t adopt this routine after becoming a success. It was this routine that built her success, proving that creativity can be cultivated through rigorous discipline, even under the most difficult conditions.
The Pragmatic Artisan: Margaret Atwood
Finally, Margaret Atwood, the dystopian mind who gave us The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments. Her fans often treat her as a prophet, a visionary. Atwood, however, treats herself as an artisan.
She is famous for her absolute pragmatism. When asked about the dreaded “writer’s block”, her response is blunt: “The only ‘writer’s block’ is being dead”. For her, if you can write your name, you can write.
Atwood approaches writing as a craft that demands persistence. She often writes her first drafts by hand, in notebooks, before moving to a computer, believing the slower physical process forces the brain to think differently. She doesn’t wait for a vision, she plans. She meticulously builds her dystopian worlds and then sits down, day after day, to fill them in.
Her most powerful quote about the process is the definition of routine: “A word after a word after a word is power.” She doesn’t romanticize the act, but she treats it as a job that requires physical and mental strength.
The “So What?”
In a world obsessed with life hacks, toxic productivity, and instant results, the anxiety to “be creative” often paralyzes us. We think we need the right tool, the perfect app, or the ideal moment of inspiration to start.
What Angelou, Morrison, and Atwood prove is that genius isn’t a “hack” – it’s a habit. Creativity isn’t found, it’s manufactured.
Their lesson is a direct antidote to our performance anxiety. The myth of the “gift” is paralyzing. It tells us to wait for something that may never come. The reality of “routine” is liberating. It gives us permission to start, even without inspiration, and to be mediocre in the first draft.
Success, as they demonstrate, isn’t in the initial spark. It’s in the discipline of returning to the chair, day after day.
___________
The article above was edited by Camilly Vieira.
Liked this type of content? Check Her Campus Cásper Líbero home page for more!