Writing Totems

I'm embarking on a new manuscript which I'm pretty excited about. Most of the analyses are done and I have an outline for the paper. Now I'm getting ready to write, so I have pulled out my writing totems. I have a very strict set of conditions under which I write well. I used to fight them and think that they were silly and constrained me from writing more spontaneously, but now I accept them and realize that I write well when I just give in to my little idiosyncrasies and that I am easily distracted without them. In particular, I handwrite all of my work and later type it. I need to write on a hard surface and I have to use lined paper (just like in grade school). I prefer special pens for the job, typically multi-colored gel pens. And it helps to have the slinky nearby to keep my hands busy during the "thinking" moments. One of the few advice books about academia that I like also encourages writers to embrace their rituals and totems. This is the same author who advocates that writing for 30 minutes a day will be sufficient for scholarly productivity. I haven't adopted that strategy yet, although I try not to go for too long without writing because it's easy to lose momentum.