Don DeLillo has famously regimented writing habits. Every day at the desk, with two long segments broken up by a run to clear his mind. Not a bad way of going about things, for anybody who has the ability to maintain that kind of 9-5 schedule, but also not the sort of thing that every writer has the time for.

In this Paris Review interview, though, DeLillo points out something he strives for which every writer can try for:

No snack food or coffee. No cigarettes—I stopped smoking a long time ago. The space is clear, the house is quiet. A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it. Looking out the window, reading random entries in the dictionary…

Staring out the window is nice but doesn’t put words on the page. Time is a commodity. Don’t waste it.

Snacks are nice, though.