Ten Daily Rituals of Productive Writers
When our local library reopened recently, my husband brought home a book he thought I’d like, called Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey. It’s an interesting collection of the daily routines of over 150 writers, composers, painters and scientists.
Was my husband hinting that I would benefit from a more orderly routine? If so, he is no doubt right.
I did not read the book cover to cover, but I enjoyed reading about many of the artists included, especially writers I am familiar with or admire. As you might imagine, there are many differences in how creative types spend their days. But there were also reoccurring themes that stuck out to me, and I thought I would try to summarize what I observed for my own edification and in case it might be helpful to you.
Time after time these 10 habits were mentioned:
- An early start to the day. (Tough news for me, as I am sadly not (yet?) a morning person.) For example, Flannery O’Connor began each day at 6:00 with morning prayers, followed by coffee and attending church. Then she returned home and wrote for three hours. Other examples:
It was my practice to be at my table every morning at 5:30 A.M.; and it was also my practice to allow myself no mercy.”
—Anthony Trollope
My hair is always done by six o’clock in the morning and by seven I am fully dressed. I then compose until nine.”
—Mozart
2. A set time to work. Most seemed to work for around 3-6 hours (not all day). Stephen King writes every day of the year, including his birthday and holidays, and almost never quits before he reaches his daily quota of two thousand words, which leads me to…
3. A predetermined page or word count. I most often saw goals of 1,000- 3,000 words a day.
4. Balancing other jobs or responsibilities. For some, writing was/is their entire life, but many juggled day jobs, families, or pursuits like gardening as do many of us. Mozart taught lessons, Joseph Heller (Catch-22) worked in Advertising, T. S. Eliot worked at a bank, and George Orwell worked in a London secondhand bookshop. A defined schedule allowed them to carve out writing time.
5. A reliance on coffee or tea (or both). Coffee or tea was mentioned by most, e.g. Beethoven rose at dawn and wasted little time getting down to work. His breakfast was coffee, which he prepared with great care—sixty beans per cup. French novelist Honoré de Balzac drank as many as fifty cups a day.
6. A quiet place to work with minimum distractions. Gustav Mahler composed in a stone hut, requiring distraction-free silence. Maya Angelou kept a shabby hotel room and wrote there daily. Dickens had an extra door installed to his study to block out noise. Anne Rice said, “What you have to do is clear all distraction. That’s the bottom line.”
7. Regular bathing (even before this was the norm), though often later in the day. This one surprised me! Victor Hugo (Les Misérables) bathed in cold water on his rooftop in plain view of his neighbors, while Benjamin Franklin began each day with an “air bath” i.e. working naked at his desk!
8. Breaks for physical exercise. Walking seems the most popular choice, although swimming and calisthenics (P.G. Wodehouse) were also mentioned. Dickens took a vigorous three-hour walk each day whether in London on in the country. And Willa Cather walked in Central Park. She said, “I try to keep myself fit, fresh; one has to be in as good form to write as to sing.”
9. Choose a good stopping point (to make it easier to start again the next day). This was mentioned by more than one author, the most famous being Hemingway who said, “always stop when you know what is going to happen next.”
10. Time spent reading. Amen to that!
Of course, there are exceptions to all of the above. Jane Austen wrote with distractions, most often in the sitting room while her mother and sister sewed or chatted nearby. Jane organized the family breakfast, her one major piece of household work, then she settled down to write. Her sister did most of the housekeeping chores, which was a relief to Jane, who wrote, “Composition seems to me impossible with a head full or joints of mutton & doses of rhubarb.” (I agree! Some days I wish I had a housekeeper or a selfless sister. 😉)
Some creatives reported sleeping in and working late, but these were relatively few. Some wrote only when the mood struck, but again, this was the minority. Most showed up every day to work whether they felt like it or not. For example, daily discipline was crucial for poet William Butler Yeats, whose concentration suffered without a regular schedule. “Every change upsets my never very resolute habits of work.”
Yes, several less-than-healthy habits cropped up as well, like drinking copious amounts of gin, chain-smoking, and amphetamines. But again, for most artists, “creative stimulants” were limited to coffee or tea, chocolate, reading, and perhaps drinks with family or friends before dinner.
In summary, what I’m taking from the book, Daily Rituals is this: If you want to be consistently productive: get up early, show up to work on a regular schedule and limit distractions to reach daily goals. Take breaks for exercise, coffee, and reading. (Oh, and baths. 😊)
No, this isn’t a promise that creating this way will be a piece of (chocolate) cake. Few described their work as easy.
I write and write and write, and rewrite. Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a peanut with your nose across a very dirty floor.”
—author Joyce Carol Oates
But worth it? Oh, yes.
What about you? What are the elements of your daily routine? Any rituals to share with us?
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Julie, this was FASCINATING!! Air baths!?? Oh, my! I think I’ll pass on that one! Haha! But yes, I find many of the other habits work for me too. I grew up on a farm so have always been an early riser. I’m usually at my laptop before 5 a.m. to read and answer email, read several devotions I subscribe to, and plan my day. My husband and I ride bikes or walk at 6:30 a.m. 4 mornings a week, and my day always starts with coffee. My reading time is in bed at night, but on the weekends, I treat myself to a few extra pages. The only thing on the list that I don’t do is “show up regularly.” The last couple months of any given deadline, I’m at my desk from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m. except on Sundays, but I take long breaks between books and early in the process, my workdays are much shorter.
Very interesting, Julie! I find I work better when I do something to restore my creativity—attend a concert or a play, feeding on others’ creativity. Not easy during a pandemic.
Great post, Julie! I would say the first four are a bit hard for me, but I definitely love number 9. I find it hard to get the motivation to start writing if I stop at an awkward spot. Especially those places where it’s hard to find good wording. But if I stop at somewhere I know for sure what will go on, it gets much easier to start writing.
I don’t know why my computer doesn’t show the comments I have posted. But I have tried to post the same thing a few times. Don’t think I am crazy if you see multiple posts looking very similar.
More proof that it’s a morning person’s world! Unfortunately, like you, that’s not my natural bent. Oh well, we can keep working at it😏 Thanks for this interesting post!
Thanks for sharing what you learned, Julie. I resonate with many of these. Especially the need for a quiet place to write with the occasional tea break. 🙂 I also was pleased to learn that most did not create all day. There have been a few times where I’ve had to write all day, but those days are so draining, I usually end up not writing for 2-3 days afterward, so I try to avoid those when possible. I also use weekly goals instead of daily goals to give myself a little more flexibility, since I’m one of those who still juggles a day job.
Fascinating article! I really enjoyed it.
Thanks for sharing, Julie. And the pushing the peanut across a dirty floor. Too true!
I found this post fascinating! Thanks for sharing some of the similarities in the creative approach. 🙂
This is bad news for me! LOL I’m good with the regular bathing, reading, and a cup of tea, but the only other thing I have going is “balancing other responsibilities,” which is probably why I’m not meeting the other six!This was fun and fascinating. Thanks for sharing it.
I guess I’m failing miserably at this thing, then. I’m literally sitting down at 10:00 am to get my scene written for the day (at least that part is consistent with the daily rituals of successful people—a daily word count goal). But my house is load, distracting, and chaotic. My oldest is listening to the Hamilton soundtrack, my second is singing along at the top of her lungs, one of my twins is vacuuming and the other is at my shoulder every five minutes with a question and/or comment. But—like Jane—this is how I prefer to write. I’ve been doing it this way for eight years. I’ll probably quit being productive when the kids all grow up and leave me with a quiet house!
I also don’t drink coffee or tea—and as for exercising…I’m a work in progress. 😬 I do bathe regularly, so maybe that’s the key to my productivity?! 🤣 We all do what works for us, right?! Thanks for sharing this today, Julie.
Thanks for not sharing a picture of Benjamin Franklin taking his “air bath” – LOL! I’m going to laugh about that one for days.
Wow, this is all so interesting!
Really, the biggest one I don’t do is get up early. I do my best writing at one and two in the morning…
That was mighty interesting and I enjoyed.
Thanks for this very interesting article. I’m trying various things to re-establish a writing habit. There were lots of good ideas here.
Thanks for the summary, Julie! This was great! I’m like you and not a morning person (like, at all) but I did notice that while writers woke up early, they did not all start as soon as they woke up, they seemed to take an hour or two before they began work. I find that fascinating because I absolutely cannot start work as soon as I wake up, my brain is only half-baked at that point. I need at least an hour or two before I can form a coherent sentence. Before, when I tried getting up early, I couldn’t work as soon as I woke up, but this makes me think that working as soon as I wake isn’t necessary.
Excellent observations Julie, thank you for sharing!
Alas, I am not an early riser but hope to work on that. I also must confess a glass of wine (or two) have accompanied me on my Civil War novel journey.
I often write outdoors in our screened-in patio and get interrupted by squirrels chattering for me to leave, the buzz of hummingbird wings and the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. C (a pair of cardinals).
Be safe. Be well. Believe.
Loved this, Julie! Had to laugh at the regular bathing–with so much time at home these days, I can see how this one might slip just a bit.