Do you wear special clothes when you are writing? This may seem a daft question – and maybe it is -  but according to a survey by the magazine Mslexia, only 48% of women writers wear “normal” clothes to do their writing in. 

Over 4,000 women writers responded to Mslexia’s survey, which is reported in the latest issue of the magazine. The survey also reveals that one in seven women writers “normally” write in their nightclothes – and one in 50 write naked, either in bed or in the bath.

Editor Debbie Taylor, who devised the survey, says she knows several prominent authors who set aside special clothes for writing in. Sarah Waters’ outfit of choice includes “a pair of shapeless black tracksuit bottoms, and a filthy blue hoodie”.

One author wrote: “I write in the bath by balancing a notebook on a towel. It’s sometimes the only quiet room in a house of seven – besides I am sick of having brilliant ideas and then forgetting them as soon as I open the door and the family starts asking for things.”

Mslexia is an independent not-for-profit publishing company that survives solely on sales of its publications and income from its competitions.