I recognise what's going on here, of course: "if I adopt the habits of my heroes, maybe I'll write as well as they do." What the book shows is that writers' routines are as idiosyncratic as the writers themselves and if it works then it works. I wanted more. The book I really wanted to read would have been called something like "Writers' Rituals: What They Are and How They Work". It's not this book's fault that it isn't *that* imaginary book.