[Michael Cantor]

My rule is that I have few rules as to when or how to write. Brand new poems often seem to arise in the early morning hours when I'm half awake, and if I'm lucky I scribble a few lines on a pad I keep by the bed, or the pillow case, or my toenail, and hope I can read it later. Beyond jotting down ideas, I rarely write before late afternoon or evening. My grind-it-out-get-the-thing-to-work writing generally starts late in the evening and runs till two or three in the morning if I'm on a roll. Or I'll watch television. Or read. I'm lucky enough (and disgustingly old enough) to be retired, so I can write when I want.

My sense is that novelists and non-fiction writers are much more structured in their work habits than poets. They often set aside set times or number of pages per day, and bang away till the bell rings. Poets seem to be more at the mercy of the muse, less structured. All of which makes sense when you consider the different outputs. Assuming you adjust, of course, for novelists or travel writers who write poetically, and poets who can't.