Maya Angelo did very little of her writing at home. She said that the comfort of her house was too distracting. “Angelou elected to write in the anonymous tranquility of what she described as “tiny, mean” hotel rooms. She typically rented the rooms for months at a time, and arrived early in the morning armed with only her writing materials and a Bible, a bottle of sherry and a deck of cards (which she claimed helped busy her “little mind”). Angelou ensured that the rooms were as spare as possible to sharpen her focus, and she often wrote while reclining on her side on the hotel bed. In an interview with the “Paris Review,” she confessed that one of her elbows was “rough with callouses” from lying on it for long hours each day.” (information from History.com.)
Angelou said, “When I’m writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we’re capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness.”
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
She was born on April 4th, 1928 and died on May 28, 2014.
