I started writing on a daily basis years ago. Every morning I go to a café, order a cup of tea and start writing. This is my practice, in the Buddhist sense of the word…

I always do free writing, i.e., writing on any topic whatsoever – without thinking, without reflecting, without any sense of hurry. Without any thought other than on the full present. Writing in this way is the most wonderful thing in the world. Actually, it is addictive: once you’ve tried it, you want to do it forever, and ever and ever. Your breathing stops being so agitated after a while and something starts to change in your perception – not only in your breathing but also in your life…

Sometimes I write in English and sometimes in French.

When I get back home, I type what seems relevant for the work I’m currently involved in. This produces a kind of matrix: at least I have a first draft to start with. Often it is more like a zero draft… Revision is another story, taking more time and energy.

This is the way I wrote my PhD dissertation, my academic articles and also my first novel.

I am now writing my second novel – in French – and my third – in English.

Here are some books that have really helped me with my writing :

Anzieu, Didier, Le corps de l’œuvre, Paris, Éditions Gallimard, 1981.

Barthes, Roland, Le plaisir du texte, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1973.

Bolker, Joan, Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day, A Guide to Starting, Revising, and Finishing Your Doctoral Thesis, New York, Henry Holt and Company Publishers, 1998.

Cameron, Julia, The Right to Write, An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life, London, Macmillan, 2000.

Damasio, Antonio R., Descartes’ Error, Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, Quill, Harper Collins Publishers, 2000. Traduction : L’Erreur de Descartes, Paris, Éditions Odile Jacob, 2001.

Delamotte, Régine, Fabienne Gippet, Anne Jorro, Marie-Claude Penloup, Passages à l’écriture : un défi pour les apprenants et les formateurs, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2000.

Genette, Gérard, Figures III, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1972.

Gilbert, Elizabeth, Big Magic, Creative Living Beyond Fear, New York, Riverhead Books, 2015.

Grossman, Evelyne, L’angoisse de penser, Paris, Les Éditions de Minuit, 2008.

Jenny, Laurent, La terreur et les signes, Poétiques de rupture, Paris, Éditions Gallimard, 1982.

Lamott, Ann, Bird by Bird, Some instructions on Writing and Life, New York, Anchor Books, 1995.

Naccache, Lionel, Le nouvel inconscient, Freud, Christophe Colomb des neurosciences, Paris, Éditions Odile Jacob, 2006.

Jobin, Anne-Marie, Le journal créatif, à la rencontre de soi par l’art et l’écriture, Paris, Éditions Du Roseau, 2002.

Plantier, Evelyne, Animer un atelier d’écriture pour tous, Paris, Eyrolles, 2010.

Rainer, Tristine, The New Diary, How to use a journal for self guidance and expanded creativity, London, Angus & Robertson Publishers, 1986.

Ricœur, Paul, Soi-même comme un autre, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1990.

Wandor, Michelene, The Author is not Dead, Merely Somewhere Else, Creative Writing Reconceived, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.