Like Morrison, she did some of her best work late, receiving a second Pulitzer Prize at age 60 (the first writer to ever receive a second Pulitzer Prize in the category of General Nonfiction) and a National Book Award at age 68. Both Morrison and Tuchman faced a “success cliff”; this is the type of cliff where a person achieves a level of success and recognitions that could impede further creative work.

Yet both sustained the cycle of creative work, Morrison pumping out five major books after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature (at age 62) and Tuchman producing four major books after the second Pulitzer Prize. Both writers produced more than 40% of their major books after the age of 60.

Like Toni Morrison, Barbara Tuchman talked and wrote extensively about her specific practices; she even wrote a whole book on her methods, Practicing History.

Recall how Toni Morrison began writing her first books not with a huge external audience in mind but so that she herself could read them. That her work eventually had a huge impact, both artistically and socially, flowed principally from keeping herself in frame, focused (alongside raising her children) on One Big Thing: books. When an interviewer asked her how she saw her public/social responsibility, how she knew she was “doing the write thing” with herself, Morrison responded, “You make it sound complicated, but it is really just about books. I edit books, I teach books, I write books.” Morrison believed that a great book can both be true to its historical/political context and be an imaginative creation, connected to what’s happening in the world while also being timeless, universal, and stunningly beautiful. In another interview, when asked whether she might take on a more political or public role if she didn’t write books, Morrison responded, “All I can do is read books and write books and edit books and critique books. . . . There are people who can organize other people and I cannot. I’d just get bored.” Morrison felt a strong sense of responsibility to give back, but she did not let that knock her out of frame. Toni Morrison did give back, absolutely and in the most profoundly powerful way: She gave of her encodings.

When Graham came across a particularly good one, she’d write “nugget” alongside the golden find. They did this for years, until they’d accumulated a great big pile of gleaming nuggets. Only then— after six years of culling documents, doing interviews, making transcriptions, and sifting for nuggets— did Graham make the definitive decision to write the book, which would take her another eight years to finish and publish. Graham would receive a Pulitzer Prize for her book at age 80.