Writing Rituals and that Zen Place

This summer at BYU's terrific Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers conference, the brilliant (and funny!) Claudia Mills talked about her daily ritual which involves making hot chocolate, snuggling up with a notebook, turning over A REAL LIVE hourglass and writing until the last grain of sand drops. Having this established ritual puts her in that special Zen place, and over the years Claudia has managed to publish something like a thousand books even though she's a professor and a mom, too.

What's your writing ritual?