At Home with Austen, On Foot with Dickens.

Writer’s Habits, Part One.

I’ve been thinking about writerly habits. Not word counts. Not tortured genius. Just the small, slightly obsessive rituals that make the work happen.

This week: Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.

Two iconic authors. Two very different ways of getting the brain going.

And I recognise myself in both.

Jane Austen wrote at home. So do I.

No atmospheric cafés.

No sharing a table at the library.

Austen wrote in her sitting room. Family nearby. Life all around her, or whenever there might have been a quiet moment. Tea or coffee probably cooling beside her.

There’s something wonderfully unpretentious about that. She didn’t wait for the “perfect creative setting.” She simply got down to creating wonderful novels, at home.

My sitting room is where I write (in winter). A big window with a view of the river. My legs curled under me as I tap away on my iPad.

Comfort isn’t laziness, it creates calm, and lets the imagination run free.

If Pride and Prejudice can be drafted between occasional domestic interruptions, I feel no guilt writing while my feet are up on the sofa, with a mug of coffee on the table next to me.

Dickens walked to think. So do I.

Dickens liked to be active — energetic, restless, famously walking miles through London to untangle his plots and fathom out his characters.

He didn’t sit around for long.

And I can identify with that too. The sofa is comfy, but I can’t sit there for more than a couple of hours.

My best ideas don’t arrive when I’m inactive. They show up on an early morning, or sunset walk, when I can let my mind be free from routine chores and daily distractions. A problem solves itself somewhere along the river, or out on the marshes.

Walking isn’t just exercise for the legs, it puts my mind into an energetic rhythm too.

Austen chose comfort.

Dickens chose motion.

Both chose what worked for their minds.

There’s something comforting about knowing the habits of great writers — and recognising your own in theirs.

This series — and the collection that goes with it — isn’t about hero worship. It’s about recognising the habits that quietly shape our own creativity.

I write at home.

I think on foot.

Turns out, I’m in very good company.

This article is part of the Writer Habits series exploring how great authors worked — and the small disciplines modern writers still practice today.

The Habits of Hemingway and Orwell.

Explore the PKD Writer Collection and find the habit that feels like yours.