Curtain Control

Jill Dearborn, author of Bang the Keys: Four Steps to a Lifelong Writing Practice, suggests that the act of writing should have cues of beginning and ending, similar to how a play begins with the curtain rising and ends with it falling.

Arranging one's time is a huge part of this phase in one's writing practice. There is something about training your body and mind to begin and end an endeavor consciously, as in lighting a candle to start the workshop, blowing it out to end, that naturally carries over into the way you structure your writing life as a whole.

How do you set off your writing times? How do you get in the mood? Is there something that you do to mark the end of it? I don't do anything special, unless you count the opening and closing of my notebook, but I'm considering trying something to get me in the mood.