The sad news that N. Scott Momaday had died made me wonder about his writing routine. This is a bit of what he told The Paris Review:
I had a strict routine at Santa Barbara, the best I’ve ever had. I made sure my mornings were free of teaching, and I’d get up around five or six o’clock and go to a twenty-four-hour diner for an hour. I would have coffee and four strips of bacon, read the Los Angeles Times. Then I would go back to my house and write for four or five hours.
I’m always interested in writing routines. And, like Momaday, I do something before I sit at a keyboard. I’d say it’s part of the routine of writing but not actually writing. I’d like to go to a diner, but I don’t think it would work for me. I love diners and newspapers that have ink on them. I’d stay longer than an hour.
• Sources: “N. Scott Momaday, The Art of Poetry No. 112,” interviewed by David S. Wallace; The Paris Review; Issue 242, Winter 2022. In honor of Momaday, the journal moved the interview from behind the paywall on Monday. It’s here:
https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/7957/the-art-of-poetry-no-112-n-scott-momaday
Momaday’s poem “A Simile,” which is popular in textbooks, can be found here:
https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/simile
“The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee is on the Poetry Foundation’s site:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46558/the-delight-song-of-tsoai-talee
For a note on how Momaday saw his work, see “How a writer sees his work,” March 7, 2022:
https://hebertaylor.blogspot.com/2022/03/how-writer-sees-his-work.html
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