Many writers rely on rituals, a series of actions or habitual behavior, that might seem quirky to some people.

Ernest Hemingway started his writing day sharpening pencils.

When John Steinbeck wrote "East of Eden," his workday began with a letter to his editor, Pascal "Pat" Covici.

Novelist Gail Godwin's workspace is a "a nice teak desk," outfitted with tools and totems, "crisp new legal pads and No. 2 pencils with good erasers that don't leave red smears ... an earth-colored ceramic box in which I keep a beechnut I picked up from Isak Dinesen's grave in Denmark and a piece of rock I picked up near D. H. Lawrence's shrine in Taos, New Mexico."

What might seem like bizarre behavior to the non-writer, I recognize as actions that have rational purposes for a writer hoping to:

1. get into the right frame of mind to write;
2. alleviate anxiety that prompts writer's block -- getting in the chair and being unable to write -- or procrastination -- inability to get in the chair in the first place;
3. focus on the mundane as a way to set aside distractions and attempt the impossible -- making meaning with marks on a page.

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That certainly helps explain why newsrooms are full of writers just as wedded to ritual as their fiction counterparts. I've worked with pacers and hair-pullers. For my part, I always plugged my right ear with a pen cap during interviews (I was convinced the AP ticker at my first job left me hearing impaired).

Recently, a habit begun in childhood -- drinking tea -- has morphed into a ritual that helps me get my writing done.

For decades, I have brewed a cup of tea every morning, a routine that not only meets my caffeine craving, but provides a few minutes of peace and relaxation before the demands of the day descend. The leaf of choice: Earl Grey, perfumed by oil of bergamot, and sold by Twinings of London, which opened one of the the first tea shops in England 1706. This also connects me daily to the English half of my heritage -- my mother's side.

For the rest of the day, I relied on diet sodas to keep me going. (Coffee was never my thing; how anyone can enjoy a beverage that tastes like a full ashtray beats me.)

But not too long ago, on a visit to Savannah, Ga., Pam Walck, a reporter for the Morning News, took me to a coffee and tea shop. I walked out with an acrylic tea infuser that steeps loose tea in hot water and drains the sweet result into a mug. And with that, what was once a simple routine became a process, as much a series of steps and decisions as writing.

That's why, before I could compose this post, I had to brew green tea, sweeten it with rock sugar and sip, slowly and deliberately, as I wrote.

What writing rituals work for you? And if there's a tea you think I should try, name it here.


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