Kayleigh Jean asked Elizabeth Gilbert:

Hi Liz! Saw your interview on MarieTV, just lovely! My Q is about rituals. Before writing, I love looking at Pinterest boards made for my stories, listening to songs that inspired my characters/setting, lighting a candle, and writing in my journal for a few minutes first. It helps ease the transition into to the manuscript without too much pressure. Do you have any pre-writing rituals you do to enhance creativity?

Elizabeth Gilbert Yes! Years and years of preparation and research! For THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS, for instance, I spent more than three years doing research on botany, on the history of 19th century science, on the history of the early pharmaceutical business, on abolition, on women's roles in academia, on the history of Philadelphia, London, Tahiti, and Amsterdam. I studied gardens, architecture, clothing fashions, and even 19th century erotica, in order to try to understand how people lived. That was my ritual, before sitting down to write a historical novel about botany and science and women's lives in the 19th century. I can never just sit down and write a novel, out of the blue — that would be like trying to run a marathon without any training. Nothing I have ever found works better as a ritual for writing, than research and preparation.

flag