Read my latest story, "The All-Nighter", at 52|250.

Over at Peony Moon, Michelle posted a quote from Judith Ortiz Cofer about waking up at 5 am every day to write. The title refers to ritual, but the passage itself talks about discipline, which got me wondering: when it comes to writing, what if anything is the difference between ritual and discipline?

I suspect that it is discipline which brings us to ritual, discipline which makes a writer wake up early (or, in my case, postpone bedtime or wine). The act of writing itself is, however, ritual: whatever method we select for recording words becomes the rite by which we alter our consciousness and enter into the state known as writing or revising. Discipline brings us to this observance which may or may not be worship, yet the ritual (if it is successful) reinforces the discipline. In other words, the act of writing gives birth to itself (or, what is ultimately the same thing) to the desire for it.

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