Why I like to write this column in bed

Earlier this month, I discovered that I share a guilty secret with the New York Times columnist Charles Blow: we both like writing our columns in bed. In my case, between 5am and 7am, propped up on pillows, ideally listening to birdsong. Blow, it seems, writes at a more civilised hour.

Either way, during our long careers we’ve both found inspiration strikes more effectively when we are huddled on our beds, rather than over a desk. “When I had an office at The New York Times I wrote there,” says Blow. But he later started to work from home and “now I’ve written in bed for so long . . . that it feels like that’s the only way that I can write”.

Does this matter? Not unless you are a writer, perhaps. (A host of novelists, from James Joyce to Truman Capote and Edith Wharton, also wrote in bed.) Even if you aren’t, there is another reason it might pay to ponder this ritual: brain science.

We live in an era in which academics, management consultants and venture capitalists are scrambling to define how creativity works, creating templates for teaching or computer programs. But from what I know about how others approach writing columns, the processes we use to parse our thoughts are not easily captured by an algorithm or training manual.

In theory, the task of a columnist is fairly easy to define. As Thomas Friedman, another New York Times writer, observed in his book Thank You For Being Late, a good column produces either “heat” (that is, evokes and expresses emotion) or “light” (illuminates the world). Ideally it does both.

Columnists usually strive to deliver these effects by acting like intellectual magpies: they move around in the world (or cyber space) collecting shiny ideas and nuggets of information, which they store and then reassemble in new structures as the need arises. The greater the number of people and worlds they collide with, the richer the intellectual bounty in the writer’s nest.

Friedman, for example, writes by “arbitraging” insights he has gathered “moving between the frontiers of human behaviour — such as wars in the Middle East, the tech world and nature’s most endangered ecosystems” — to draw lessons. 

Yet the way columnists process the information they absorb varies. Some collect it systemically: the FT’s Brooke Masters has a Google Doc that she constantly fills with journalistic “string” (or content) about different topics, filed according to subject matter, ready to be used at the right moment.

Others have a kaleidoscope of ideas whirling in their head. I am constantly tucking thoughts into the back of my mind, which I then half forget until my brain rearranges them into new connections while I sleep. Hence why I like writing in bed. New ideas often strike during the groggy moment when I wake up.

Columnists act like intellectual magpies, moving around the world collecting shiny ideas and nuggets of information

A strikingly high number of columnists are also “larks”, in the sense that their creative processes are most alive at dawn, even if they get out of bed first. “I get up at 5am or so, brush my teeth, make some coffee, sit in my favourite chair with my laptop on my, well, lap, and start writing,” says Joe Nocera of Bloomberg. Or as FT Weekend columnist Jo Ellison observes: “I used to do [columns] after hours but found I was just too sluggish, so now I am getting up early.”

But some find it easier to solve problems late at night. The FT’s Ed Luce generally writes columns in the day, but “on the odd occasion” when he gets writer’s block, “a glass of Cabernet in the evening can work wonders”. His colleague Janan Ganesh often works very late. Others keep stricter hours: the FT columnist Pilita Clark generally toils in the (normal) working day.

While some columnists feel more comfortable in womblike settings such as a bed or chair, others need structure to deliver their thoughts. “I risk losing my voice if I’m not at my desk,” says Masters.

Perhaps the most intriguing variation of all is the interaction between typing and ideas. Robert Shrimsley, another FT colleague, says: “I always do my thinking in the writing,” which means, “I will start with a broad idea of my subject or what I intend to say [but] the writing is the process of thinking through the argument.”

Others know what they will say before even tapping on a keyboard. “I almost always have a clear structure in mind and write the column straight through over two to three hours,” says Martin Wolf, the FT’s chief economics commentator, who is highly organised. By contrast, I write to organise my ideas, then rewrite numerous times.

Is any process better or worse than any other? Not necessarily. The key point is that it is not easy for “larks” to become “owls” or for sequential thinkers to write without a plan — or vice versa. Different brains create in different ways.

Perhaps the main thing to take from this is the need to welcome intellectual diversity, not simply in terms of our ideas but our cognitive functions too. The varied nature of human inspiration, after all, is one thing that separates us from artificial intelligence. It is also why you won’t see robots trying to perform their tasks in bed.

Follow Gillian on Twitter @gilliantett and email her at gillian.tett@ft.com

Follow @FTMag on Twitter to find out about our latest stories first.