One place you will be sure to find Susan Lovett is basking the eminence of great authors, thousands of them. You will certainly have to ask first. Those 7,000 authors line the shelves of her vast personal library.

Get this, not one of those 7,000 books is a duplicate! Susan meticulously catalogues and rates her library of books. If a book doesn’t garner from her a rating of three stars on Goodreads, she doesn’t keep it.

Susan Lovett is the owner of The Right Word writing studio and a member of The Military Writers Guild. Her clients include among many others, PBS, National Geographic, the Department of the Army and the Department of Defense. While she blogs about writing at Figments and Fables, she just offered A Case for Clarity here on Medium.

I wish I could share the entire conversation I had with Susan with you here. Sadly the gods of Medium say you all have short attention spans. So let’s go…

[John DeRosa] What time do you typically wake up? What does the first hour of your day look like?

[Susan Lovett] Unlike many MilWriters Guild members, I do not get up for anything at “0-dark-30.” But I am still awake. I go to bed around 1–2:00 AM and I get up around 7:30 AM to get my son ready for school. I don’t write anything before 10:00 AM. I will do administrative work, social media, my email, or client phone calls. I prefer not to write until 11:00 AM. That sounds really lazy, but my best writing time is between 10:00 PM and 2:00 AM.

I am not a “morning person.” I think it’s in my nature to rebel against mornings. My father tried for years to drive this from me, without success. He used to yell, “Let me hear your feet hit the floor” to wake me and I would swing my legs off the bed, stomp on the floor and roll right back up in the blankets. I never did bend to his lingering Marine ways, much to his chagrin.

[JD] What kind of rituals do you have to get your day started?

[SL] I have to take a shower first thing. I stumble out of bed and head to the shower. I don’t drink coffee so that is my way of waking up. Other than that, my morning is spent connecting with my husband (if he’s still there) and my son to make sure they are going to have a good day.

I do meditate before I get out of bed. I spend about ten minutes meditating on the day and getting my mind in the right place. I use that time to get myself in the right frame of mind to hit the ground running as soon as I drop my son off at school.

I also get dressed. I am not one of those who works at home in my pajamas. I have to be ready for the day. When I skip this step, I feel it all day. There is no way to avoid feeling lazy in pajamas.

[JD] In your meditation, are you asking yourself specific questions? Are you speaking affirmations?

[SL] No. It is more deep breathing and cleansing my mind and body of stress. I visualize what I want to accomplish. There are moments in writing when the words flow. It’s heaven. I focus on that. I focus on recreating that type of energy so I can have one of those days.

[JD] Between this initial morning routine and your writing, you are spending time with your family and doing administrative tasks. Is there anything that you do that gets you back into writing mode?

[SL] When I walk down to my computer, I do a bit of stretching before I sit down. When I turn on my computer, I take a deep breath and open my writing (not the internet). That is my cue for “Let’s go.” I find if I don’t do that I get mentally tired because I am not ready. I have trained myself over the years to get myself to feel energetic and ready to write. I have to work myself into a state where I am allowing the words to come. Otherwise, I am thinking about a million other things. I need to clear all that out.

Sitting down to write is like the ritual of making a cup of tea. It takes time to brew it and let it steep. The time getting my family ready for the day and preparing myself for a day at the computer, allows me to let go of distractions and ready to write.

[JD] Describe your writing space.

[SL] I love my writing space. It is a tiny office space carved out of the basement. It is completely lined in shelves. I have a big window where I get light with a view of trees (and Ty’s house). The space is dominated by a desk in the middle with a huge iMac.

I am surrounded by greatness. I am surrounded by Dickens, Gaiman, Tolkien, and Austen. It is exciting because when I look up I see favorite books and characters sitting side-by-side. My books always make me smile. There are also so many books that I haven’t read. It is the anticipation and excitement of a good library that feeds my energy.

My office is filled with bright colors and is, admittedly, the most girly place in our house. I have geeky things on my desk. It is fun. I like to keep it light and engaging. I think it must be a holdover from working at Disney.

[JD] How you determine what you are writing about?

[SL] There are two different ways I work. My client work is determined by project. I do not take on every project that comes my way. I don’t have the time to do that. When I do sign on with an assignment, I work to a production calendar and stick to it. I do not miss deadlines. With clients, I write speeches, video and documentary scripts, articles, web content, and ancillary products. If they are producing a documentary, they will want to put up a website. If they are presenting at AUSA, they need brochures. I do the whole package.

With my personal work, it is different and based on my mood. I write what I am interested in at the time. I need to be passionate about something for it to show in my writing. Right now I am working on a young adult novel. It has a lot of the Colonial Era and Revolutionary War in it. So I have been diving into history. Space is next. In between I write short stories and articles as subjects as my mood dictates. There is no grand plan in my personal work, just ideas flying around all the time that I capture in notebooks.

I like to dive into new subjects. I would have twenty-two PhDs if I could because I love to learn. The problem is that when I feel competent at a subject, I want to learn the next thing. I have an insatiable sense of curiosity and get bored easily if I am not learning. Luckily, I am interested in many things.

[JD] How do you keep track of all that new information?

[SL] I have notebooks — paper and computerized versions. I am meticulous about my research.

I always have a working bibliography as I am researching. I code my bibliographies so as I am taking notes, I can put a code down with a page number. I always make sure I capture direct quotes with notations so I don’t inadvertently paraphrase back into the original.

For my work, I do enough research to get me started. Then as I write, I put lines where there are holes. I go back and research to fill those specific holes. Otherwise, I would spend three or four years researching. I can’t do that; I don’t have the time and clients don’t want to pay me for that long.

If it is a client, I ask them to give me as much material as they can. Then I read everything they can give me. I am a speed reader. I assimilate it and then create whatever they need.

I do a lot of research in libraries. Right now I am researching in the Library of Congress and at George Washington’s library at Mount Vernon. When I am at libraries I tend to collect my notes in longhand form.

Ideas get captured in longhand unless it is a scene that comes to me. For those, I run to the computer and write as quickly as I can.

If I am conducting interviews, I do pre-interview preparation. I take notes on a computer for those typically in NoteTaker. In NoteTaker you can organize your notes, do tabs, and link in from other sources. When I am finished, I link all my research to Scrivner, which is what I use to write long-form. For video scripts, I use Final Draft.

And I outline everything. In writing, structure is everything. I have to outline what I find in research and find a logical structure to present the information. Sometimes it is not the way the client has asked to present it. Sometimes I pitch a new way that reorganizes the materials into more logical groupings.

[JD] What are you reading lately?

[SL] I read a lot. Right now I am reading Dog Stars by Peter Heller. I just finished Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley, Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver, Dead Things by Stephen Blackmoore, and The Storied Life Of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin. For work, I am reading Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis, 1776 by David Mccullough, and re-reading The Federalist Papers and Common Sense.

[JD] You said you are a speed reader…

[SL] I do not speed read fiction. This is going to sound terrible, but I only speed read for clients. I don’t have the time otherwise. I admit I do speed read if a book is boring too. Sad, but true. I hate to put a book down unfinished and rarely do. It is a bad sign when I do. Putting aside for later? That’s another story.

[JD] If you are speed reading, how long does it take to get through a book?

[SL] If it takes me ten hours to get through a book normally, I will take me two hours to speed read.

[JD] How did you select what to read?

[SL] For the Revolutionary War books, I am taking an online course through iTunes. I love their free courses you can take. It is phenomenal. I am reading their entire reading list. I also do research through library catalogs, usually Library of Congress since it is more comprehensive. I read reviews and search Goodreads for recommendations.

For personal reading, I look to Goodreads, my bookish friends, Publishers Weekly, Politics & Prose, Bookbub, Shelf Awareness, and book reviews. I love reading recommendations from favorite authors or just browsing the shelves at local bookstores. I do more of that than I should. I love Tuesdays because that is when the new books go on shelves. See? It’s bad.

[JD] This is an out of the ordinary question, but before you got started you shared a little about your library. Could you describe your library?

[SL] I have over 7,000 titles in my library. It is split up throughout the house. My office is my fiction library (not counting the massive “to-be-read” shelves in my bedroom). It is organized alphabetically by author (initial letter only, so A’s are on one shelf, etc.). My non-fiction collection is in the family room, mostly. I have over 600 cookbooks in the kitchen. My son has well over 700 books in his room. My husband has his stash of engineering books in his workshop. They are everywhere.

I put all my books into Goodreads and back that up regularly. Then when I am out shopping for books, I can pull up my library to make sure I am not buying a duplicate. I can’t read as much as I buy so I am always in danger of buying the same book twice.

[JD] I have read that most people buy books and never read them.

[SL] But isn’t that the point of a library? It should be filled with books upon books waiting to be read. That’s half the fun of collecting them. When I was single, I spent twice as much on books as I did on food. I can’t do that now that I have a family, but I still buy more than I probably should. Still, there is a thrill when I browse my own shelves and find books I desperately wanted to read and haven’t yet. I always plop down and start reading on the spot.

I buy three different kinds of books. I buy books for pleasure. I buy books for work. Then I have a craft section filled with books about writing. I always have a craft book available. Right now I am reading The Trickster’s Hat by Nick Bantock. I have everything from linguistics books like Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog by Kitty Burns Florey to On Writing by Stephen King. My favorite lately has been Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing by Constance Hale.

[JD] What is the book (or books) you’re most likely to give as a gift or one you’ve given as a gift the most?

[SL] If it is for a writer, Letters To A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. If it is a young writer, The Deluxe Transitive Vampire by Karen Elizabeth Gordon, a fun grammar book. If it is a friend, American Gods by Neil Gaiman or The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Erin is the best at setting the description. That is something I struggle with because I come from a film background. Whenever I am writing fiction, I feel as though I am suffering from a lack of b-roll. You don’t write description in film. You show it. I tend to gravitate towards writers who do it really well.

Lately, I have given The Martian by Andy Weir. It is a fun science book about a man who gets stranded on Mars and what he has to do to survive. It is great dialogue. Very funny.

[JD] Those questions generally give people a hard time.

[SL] I love books! I am a book addict. I admit it freely. I will happily chat about books for hours.

[JD] So then let me get to the more boring questions. What’s your drink of choice?

[SL] Water and tea. I am so boring. If I am going to drink, I am an Irish girl — I want Bushmills or Jameson. Although I won’t turn down a good margarita.

[JD] Where’s the most adventurous place(s) you have been?

[SL] All through Mexico. I have been to the non-tourist parts of Mexico. I have driven from Puerto Nueva, across the Spine of the Devil, to Zacatecas, and Aguascalientes. I have been through Mexico several times, which is always a big adventure. I never come back well.

My father did thirty years in the Service. He did three years enlisted in the Marine Corps and twenty-seven years as an Air Force fighter pilot. So I am a military brat. We never got stationed overseas, although out household goods did go to Guam once by mistake.

My father always said that if he was going to defend the country — he did three tours in Vietnam — we were going to know it. So I have been to all fifty states. I have been to seven of the ten provinces of Canada. I have been through most of Mexico, but I have never been to Cancun. And I have been all through Ireland because that is where my people are from. I need to explore more outside of North America.

[JD] What bold steps would you like to see the MWG take?

[SL] I think I am too new to answer that. I think it is great that I was asked to join because I don’t fit the mold. I was a military brat for 19 years. I married Army. My son’s godfather is Navy. I write for military clients and have for a long time. But it has never been my career. Heck, I started out writing for the Mouse (Mickey). Still show me flags and uniforms and I feel at home, which is why I was interested in joining the Guild. I hope I can bring something to the Guild as a full-time writer who understands and loves the military. It’s family.